'Jekyll and Hyde' Huddersfield Town need to eradicate sloppiness, says Michael Duff

Josh Koroma and Ben Wiles were on target for the Terriers with Harvey White’s stoppage-time penalty coming too late for the visitors to salvage anything.

But it could have been a different story if Elliott List had take advantage of a golden opportunity moments after the break and hit what would have been an equaliser for Stevenage.

Duff said: “I thought we were excellent first half and not very good second half. We’ve got to credit Stevenage for the way they came out second half, but we have to do better than what we did.

“We got sloppy and complacent, and once you start like that it’s hard to change. The last kick of the game is the disappointing moment for us, but ultimately it’s a win.

“We’re trying to shift the mentality and say you can’t pick and choose when you turn up and when you don’t. They’ve been excellent and set their own standards and they fell below them, so they got a bit of stick there from me, because that’s my job. It was just basic things really – not running hard enough, being sloppy, basically thinking the game was won when it wasn’t.

“I think we deserved to win the game, but from my point of view it’s a weird emotion because I’m frustrated and you’re saying well done at the same time. It’s very rarely that happens, but it’s a warning shot really.”

Stevenage boss Alex Revell was left wondering what might have been after that glorious missed chance to equalise.

He said: “It was a bit Jekyll and Hyde, I think is the way to put it. First half we didn’t get enough pressure to the ball and allowed them really to just dictate the play.

“We’d changed the shape a bit to counteract what Huddersfield do, and it didn’t materialise how we wanted it to. That’s not an excuse, we still need to match a runner, and for all Huddersfield’s good play, they’ve scored from a cross where we haven’t marked their player.”