Jones refusing to panic after back-to-back Owls defeats

The Owls lost their six-month unbeaten record away at Crystal Palace and followed that up with defeat at Brighton on Friday evening.

Consecutive defeats have got the Hillsborough natives restless, but Jones believes while the Owls need to tighten up defensively, he does not need to tinker too much with his squad.

“We lose a game and all of a sudden the world has caved in,” said Jones. “You have to be very careful, everybody panics and wants changes. There was hardly anything in the game (at Brighton) until the free-kick which brought the goal.

“There is a very fine line between success and failure. All of a sudden we have lost a couple of games and people are starting to want to change things and do things differently.

“We can look for as many reasons, or excuses as we want, but really when we go over the videos we are making the same mistakes and it’s how long we can afford to let that go before we tell people that you are not listening or learning from the mistakes they are making.

“But, we are doing okay. Too many people get carried away. It’s the first back-to-back defeats the club has had for a long time, and we have to get back on track. It happens to the best of teams.

“Not to feel sorry for yourself is important too because we are doing alright. We are in a division where last year we got away with a lot of things that are happening, this year you can’t.”

Victory against Brighton would have taken the Owls top of the Championship, to illustrate Jones’s view.

Defenders Reda Johnson and Anthony Gardner both returned to training yesterday and could return tomorrow night, but injured duo Lewis Buxton (hamstring) and Chris Lines (groin) are still out.

Meanwhile, Simon Grayson has stressed he will not be rushed into bolstering the Town frontline ahead of the derby trip to Hillsborough.

The Terriers sold Jordan Rhodes just before the transfer window shut but were unable to bring in a replacement after a loan move for Leicester City’s Jermaine Beckford collapsed at the eleventh hour.

On Saturday, Grayson opted to play James Vaughan as a lone frontman in the 1-0 home victory against Derby County with Adam Hammill playing just off his fellow loanee.

The Huddersfield chief said: “We are doing okay, but we are always looking to add to the squad if the players concerned are better than the ones we’ve got. We could sign a number of players tomorrow if we wanted, but I don’t think they would be good enough to get in our team at the moment, so there is not much point.

“We also have a very strong bench of players who are desperate to get a chance in the starting XI. With the team doing so well, the XI has picked itself to a certain degree.”