[themaclad]

Huddersfield Town line-up: Nicholls; Spencer, Lees (Edmonds-Green, 75), Boyle, Nakayama; Mahoney (Jackson, 84) Russell (Rudoni, 54), Camara, Koroma (Thomas, 55); Rhodes, Holmes (Anjorin, 54). Subs not used: Bilokapic, Turton, Ruffels, Grant, Jackson.

PNE line-up: Woodman; Storey, Bauer, Cunningham; Potts, Whiteman, Ledson (O’Neill, 84), Fernández (Johnson, 45); Woodburn (Slater, 84), McCann (Leigh, 88); Parrott (Riis, 60). Subs not used: Cornell, Hughes, Olosunde, Amaral.

Attendance: 5550

Referee: Mr R Joyce.



On a hot Yorkshire evening North End put in a more than decent performance to move to the next round of the League Cup seeing off Champioship rivals Huddersfield. They scored four could have had six, the performance gives Mr Fantastic choices to make in regard to the side at Kenilworth Road on Saturday.
Both sides made about haf a dozen changes from the last tie they played and those in yellow looked a more cohesive unit than their opponents.
One up in five minutes, nice build up with Fernandez involved as he was with everything in the first half, Ledson shot parried by Nicholls, should he have done better, possiby, rebound put away by Parrott.
Next came the games outstanding moment, another ball in from the left, Potts' volley was as good as it gets only thing wrong it hit the bar and bounced away to safety. A brief period of Huddersfield pressure came to nothing, before we doubled our lead, again a nice build up Fernandez across the face of the goal, McCann with the finish. Same combination ten minutes later and it's three. This was enough for some Town fans who headed towards the exit.
Only downside Fernandez injured on the stroke of half time. We were not as fluent in the second half although Woodburn was unlucky hitting the underside of the bar, didn't matter within a couple of minutes Potts had intercepted a pass, got to the edge of the box before firing in number four.

Town improved after a few substitutions, to be fair they could hardly get worse, and he scores when he wants evaided the offside trap and ran 30 plus yards to slide the ball past Woodman, in fairness to Rhodes he rarely misses chances like that.
Thomas forced Woodman into a save and they forced a series of late corners which came to nothing, but after that bit of pressure North End regained control na dbrought on Lewis and Slater to make first team debuts.

LOWE'S VIEW

Ryan Lowe could not praise his players enough after their dominant display against Huddersfield Town secured a 4-1 win and progress into the Carabao Cup second round.

The manager admitted his players had done everything that had been asked of them as they stormed into a 3-0 half-time lead, with Troy Parrott’s first goal for the club quickly followed by an Ali McCann brace, before Brad Potts extended the lead soon after the break.

While Jordan Rhodes netted a consolation for the hosts to deny Freddie Woodman a third clean sheet in a row, there was no containing the manager’s satisfaction at the final whistle.

“I’m massively pleased. The lads who have come in and the lads who have probably missed out on the start of the season and not playing, sometimes it can kick you in the teeth, can’t it? We said to them to go out there and be professional.

“I thought they were all fantastic today, every single one of them – top drawer. And then to finish the game with two young kids on the pitch was more pleasing.

“I thought the performance overall was fantastic. The passing through the lines, our shape was fantastic, I thought everything we asked for they’ve done, in the first half especially. The second half, the game is more or less done. To keep going and find the back of the net again was very pleasing.

“Overall, pleased with everything about it, the game plan they stuck to and as I said to the lads, every time they follow the game plan, nine times out of ten we win games of football.”

Alvaro Fernandez made a memorable first start for the club by registering assist for both of Ali McCann’s efforts, before being substituted at the break as a precaution.

He continued: “We knew him and Robbie down that left-hand side are going to challenge each other right the way through the season, they give you two different things, but we always felt this was going to be Alvaro’s night tonight to unleash him.

“He was fantastic, his balls into the box. I think at one point he looked a little bit shattered because he hasn’t played much game time. He’s fine, he rolled his ankle a little bit, it’s more precaution, we waited till half-time and assessed him, he’ll be absolutely fine.

“He might be a little bit stiff tomorrow but he’ll be okay Thursday Friday. Really pleased with his performance, along with everyone else’s to be honest with you, I thought they were fantastic.”

Ben Woodburn was also making his first start for the club and, like Brad Potts earlier in the contest, was denied a goal by the woodwork as the Lilywhites put on an impressive attacking display that could have yielded even more goals.

“That’s the type of football we want to play. Pottsy’s, wow! That volley, I thought it was in. It hit the stanchion, come out, and then Ben Woodburn – we could have had six goals there tonight, easily.

“I’m pleased with the patterns of play, how they work, how we want them to work, where we want them to get down the sides of, and put balls in the box. We’ve got to be on the end of them to score them and we certainly did tonight.”

With Woodburn and Fernandez among the six changes from the weekend’s stalemate against Hull City, the boss admitted he had a selection headache in store ahead of Saturday’s trip to Luton Town, but he was all the more pleased for it, particularly in front of a magnificent travelling contingent of 1,100 PNE supporters.

“They were loud and proud as well, brilliant. We keep saying we’ve got to entertain them and I think they’ll go home very entertained tonight. Really pleased with them, the support’s immense, I’ve said that all along, I can’t thank them enough.

“There’s going to be more of them and there are going to be long journeys and more journeys but if we keep performing the way we can we know we’ll send them home happy.”


OPPOSITION VIEW

Huddersfield Town Head Coach Danny Schofield was honest in his assessment after his side were defeated at home by Preston North End.

“It was a tough evening” Schofield said.

“Again, I don’t think we started the game very well.

“We came up against a very good opponent, but it’s a performance that’s hard to evaluate right now, but we weren’t at it tonight.

Having fallen behind in the first half of their last three matches, the Head Coach insisted that it’s something already being addressed on the training pitch.

“We address this with the players consistently, about starting with good intent, starting with good body language, starting on the front foot, trying to be aggressive in the way we want to play.

“It’s a difficult one to really put your finger on, but there’s work going in to try and remedy these things.

“Players and coaches will always go through tough periods in their careers, that’s the business we’re in.

“It’s very important to stick together in these moments, try and find out where the problems lie, try and address these problems and work on it relentlessly every single day, then move on quickly.”

Despite full debuts for several young players and new signings, Schofield was in no mood to try and pick any positives from the night.

“It’s very difficult to highlight any positives.

“There might’ve been certain moments, but when the performance and the result is like that, it’s very difficult to hang on to anything.

“It hurts. It’s disappointing and it’s very emotional. Not just for myself, but for the rest of the staff and the players.

“We want to try and create that togetherness and that feeling that we’re all as one, and I think we have that. There’s a really good group of people here.

“It’s tough, it’s difficult and it hurts, but we need to keep working hard moving forward and try to get performances on the pitch.”