Terriers Triumphant at Hillsborough

Huddersfield Town leave Hillsborough on a wet and windy Tuesday evening, following a dominant and hugely impressive display, with all three points

The Terriers in truth could and probably should have won the game by more, but a 4,000 plus travelling backing were more than happy with the two goals Town served up.

Firstly Graham Carey scored a simply stunning free-kick from around 25 yards out. The on-loan Celtic man powered home the kick between the helpless Wednesday ‘keeper Nicky Weaver and his left hand post.

And just as the Town faithful, who were in great voice all evening, had just finished celebrating Carey’s wonder strike the man of the moment Anthony Pilkington popped up to score what proved to be the decisive blow and the final nail in Wednesdays coffin.

Joey Gudjonsson intercepted a poor pass out of defence from Purse before immediately sliding the ball behind the Owls defence for Jordan Rhodes; he turned inside and laid the ball off to Garner on the edge of the box, who immediately pushed it to the right for the onrushing winger. Pilkington ran onto the ball in assured style and bent a now trademark shot around the goalkeeper with his left foot and into the bottom corner to send the visiting supporters into raptures.

Sheffield Wednesday were booed from the field at Half Time by their own fans, and whilst they attempted to muster a comeback it was never really on the cards, with Ian Bennett in the Town goal rarely troubled by the Owls strikeforce.

Town fans were treated to a first glimpse of Benik Afobe who came on in the 65th minute for Joe Garner. Afobe looked confident and showed some nice touches of skill, one that lead to a booking for Owls defender Mark Beevers.

Afobe, Arfield and Rhodes all went close to adding to Town’s tally, but the game finished at 2-0.

Player Ratings

Ian Bennett 8
Was hardly tested in the Town goal, another clean sheet for the Veteran ‘Keeper

Lee Peltier 8
Solid and dependable as always, altercation with Clinton Morrison, which Pelts was always going to win

Liam Ridehalgh 8
Impressive for a debut performance at Hillsborough, will have done the youngsters confidence no harm.. problem left-back position?? Gary Naysmith who? lol

Peter Clarke (c) 9
Head in on everything, led the line valiantly

Antony Kay 8
New lease of life at CB, all his knockers seem to have vanished, another faultless display

Damien Johnson 8
What a difference he makes to the side, if only he could have played against Plymouth

Joey Gudjonsson 7
Starting to show the signs of class that persuaded Lee Clark to sign him. Solid

Graham Carey 8
Superb Goal, definately well worth waiting to see on the telly!

Anthony Pilkington 10
Simply un-stoppable at the moment.

Joe Garner 7
Worked hard, early injury scare but recovered and probably had his best game for Town so far

Jordan Rhodes 8
unlucky not to have scored, hit the woodwork and a good late chance but by then the game was already won.

Benik Afobe 7
Looked extremely lively and keen to impress, looking forward to seeing him in action against Cambridge already!

Scott Arfield 7
Epitomised the team spirit with high 5’s to Carey when he came on, dependable as always.

and Lee Clark’s final message to the Town fans,

Manager Rating
Lee Clark 9

Got the team selection bob on, and despite Town holding a good lead, his eagerness on the touchline for perfection shone through

Lee Clark speaking to htafc.com
“The emotional side of the game came out at the end, but I’m a football fan myself and I really appreciate when the fans turn out like they do for us week in, week out. For us to put on a complete performance like that – the quality of our play in the first half with and without the ball combined with the desire that the lads showed in the second-half to keep the ball out of the goal – has done the travelling fans proud.

We’ve done nothing yet though, so I’m not getting overly excited. I just wanted to show my appreciation to the fans for their fantastic continued support.”

“We saw two terrific finishes tonight. I told everyone about Graham Carey and the fact that we first spotted him in the behind closed doors friendly against Celtic when he did that to us and he’s now done that a couple of times already for us! As for Anthony Pilkington, he is just on one of those runs at this moment in time – he is an absolute gem of a player with quality in both feet.

“At the end we saw professionalism and quality; players playing at the top of their game and using their football brains. They threw everything at us and used all three subs, so when they got an injury they went a man down – at that stage we killed them because we kept the ball using one and two touch football, We kept moving the ball from side to side and they couldn’t get near us as we ran the clock down.

“If there had been another 10 or 15 minutes and we had continued that, the chances would have opened up for us but we didn’t have to force it.”

Lee Clark on new signing Benik Afobe, again speak
As people saw tonight, Benik Afobe is another fantastic young player from the Arsenal production line. He only met the team for the first time at 4.30pm and he spent a lot of time in the car yesterday as he travelled up from London to Huddersfield with his father, but I just wanted to see us play in order to understand how the lads were about and what their assets were. I think he sat on the bench and learned, because when he came on he was linking up with everybody. He played it simple when necessary and showed a few bits of magic too and he looks a very mature player.”

and Lee Clark’s final message to the Town fans,
My message to the supporters is to keep with us. Keep strong but be even stronger when we have our little downs because if you do that, we will get where we want to go. We know there will be little setbacks from now until the end of the season but stay strong, keep believing and don’t lose the faith. If we all do that – from the youngest supporter right through to the owner – we will be fine, because the players have shown again tonight that they are of a high quality.”

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