EFL CUP ROUND ONE. TUESDAY, UNLUCKY 13th AUGUST 2024.

Horrorshow at Huddersfield

Morecambe’s second game of the new season meant another trip away from Lancashire tonight. The Shrimps had to go across the Pennines to visit the John Smith’s Stadium to play Huddersfield Town in a First Round League Cup tie. The two clubs have only met once before in a competitive game. That was twenty years ago when Town beat the Shrimps 3-0 in the old LDV Vans Trophy.

Michael Duff was given the Manager’s job at Huddersfield following the Terriers’ relegation from the Championship last season. We know him best as a successful Manager at Cheltenham but his stint at Swansea – where the fans hated his agricultural style of playing – ended with the sack last season after a long winless run. Do I detect a little bit of bitterness, though, in his assessment of Manager-Player relations when he spoke about the task facing him in Yorkshire in these terms?:

“Ultimately, most of the group were in a team that got relegated, so it’s ‘how do you want to react?’ Do you want to blame everyone else, or do you want to take a little bit of ownership of it – what went wrong, why did it go wrong, and how can we correct it? That’s part of my job, it’s to try and fact-find almost – and get to the bottom of it. Just because you maybe don’t get picked in a team or the team loses, it can’t all of a sudden be about you and your agenda. It’s something I’m really, really big on. You’ll achieve nothing as an individual in this game; you need ten other people with you. There’s eleven on the pitch, they’re the important ones on a Saturday. During the week, everyone’s just as important as each other. The moment players start making it about them, or an issue between me and you, or a player against a player, nothing good comes of it. Ultimately, that reflected in the relegation last year. It’s just trying to knit that together and get to the bottom of it.”

His philosophy seems to have worked so far at least. In their first game in League One last Saturday, the Terriers won 0-2 at widely-tipped favourites for promotion, Peterborough United.  They would be expected to continue this vein of form against a League Two team tonight and Mr Duff had this to say about the challenge prior to the match:

“It’s another game. It’s a game we want to win. Definitely. If we do change the team, it’ll be giving people a chance rather than resting people because we’ve only had one game: we’re not into that part of the season. There probably will be changes but it will be a strong team we’ll put out. Definitely. It’s still early but I’ve played against Derek’s teams a lot in the past. One thing they are is they’re always structured; they are always hard to break-down. Whatever formation they play, he gets the best out of his players. We will be fully aware of their strengths and weaknesses. Whether they change shape or not, we need to focus on our performance. (Derek’s) teams have always been difficult to play against. I know what to expect even if the players don’t.”

He shook his team up a bit and Callum Marshall – on-loan from Premiership West Ham United – made his first start for the Terriers tonight, as did 19-year-old midfielder Tom Iorpenda. In goal, Chris Maxwell replaced Saturday’s custodian Lee Nicholls.

Morecambe, we must remember, have a habit of upsetting the odds against supposedly better teams in this particular competition – eliminating Stoke City on penalties two years ago and being unlucky to lose after a penalty shoot-out to Rotherham last year. But in order to do so, they would have to play an awful lot better than they did against Walsall last Saturday in a weak display where they lost one-nil and showed no signs of ever even getting back into the game, let alone winning it. Derek Adams told us after this feeble performance that “The performance wasn’t good enough today.” As far as tonight’s game is concerned, he added:

“They have an extremely strong outfit. They played very well on Saturday against Peterborough. It’s a challenge – we know that. We will have to be exceptionally good on Tuesday night. Huddersfield are going to have to be below par for us to get through to the next round. They could change their team around quite a bit but they will still be strong. What won’t change is their system of play. We respect them. They have a lot of talented players. But we’ll give it our best shot on Tuesday night.”

Derek also shook things up and Harry Burgoyne took over goalkeeping duties from Stuart Moore as he made a few changes in the first eleven as well, with Lee Ingol and Jordan Slew starting from the beginning tonight.

It was dry and warm as the match kicked-off under dark clouds – and the worst possible start for Morecambe. Lasse Sørensen took the ball right through the away defence without being challenged and then fed Jaheim Headley, who bundled the ball past Burgoyne after just 45 seconds without anyone in a red shirt actually touching the ball. The League One team continued to ask all the questions as they regularly played-out from the back and won the first corner of the game after ten minutes. There were calls for a penalty from the Huddersfield faithful as Danny Ward might have been fouled after latching onto a long ball by Herbie Kane and unleashing a shot which missed the target. Referee Simon Mather was unmoved, however. Kayden Harrack fouled Tom Iorpenda after 22 minutes in a promising position for the hosts but Kane’s header from it didn’t trouble Harry greatly. David Kasumu shot tamely wide of the target shortly afterwards and although the Shrimps were belatedly beginning to frustrate the men in the striped blue and white shirts defensively, they were producing absolutely nothing threatening going forward themselves. Burgoyne then earned his corn in the thirty-first minute, doing really well to keep out a shot from Iorpenda. Tom White then conceded another corner, which bounced about alarmingly in the Morecambe box before Captain Yann Songo’o finally hoofed it away from the danger area. The visitors won a free-kick after 38 minutes in a promising position, faffed about with the ball before losing it and being caught on the counter-attack with all their big defenders stranded up-field. As a result, debutant Callum Marshall got his first goal for his temporary club after Sørensen raced up the pitch and crossed it to him for a fairly routine header: it was an appalling goal to give away. As the rain began to fall heavily, Huddersfield went even further ahead in the forty-second minute. Marshall managed to win the ball from White and slip it across to Ward, who scored with a cheeky back-heel into the corner of the net.

So the bedraggled Shrimps squelched back to the Dressing Rooms at half time already looking to just try and keep the score down. Could they improve at all in the second half?

Derek initially stuck with the same team he had chosen at the outset for the start of the second period. The home team continued to ask all the questions initially, though. But the Shrimps finally created a chance with 56 minutes on the clock. Tollitt did really well to set-up Jordan Slew for a shot but Jordan was only able to balloon the ball over the bar as he was challenged by a Terriers’ defender. So the King made three changes after almost an hour with Gwion Edwards, Harvey Macadam and Callum Jones replacing Angol, Tollitt and Songo’o. Huddersfield also saw a couple of changes as the team looked to simply play-out time for what was turning out to be a far too easy win for them this evening. To make things even worse for the visitors, Kayden Harrack was sent-off after 75 minutes following a second yellow card for a foul on substitute Josh Koroma. Huddersfield – clearly playing in second gear – almost went even further ahead when a shot from Koroma hit the post with three minutes left to play. As the Morecambe fans bravely sang “Bring Me Sunshine”, their team on the field ended the evening as a damp squib. Goalkeeper Burgoyne finished the game with another fine stop, saving with his ankle as sub David Tutonda’s appalling back-pass seemed to be about to set-up Koroma for what looked like an easy score.

The bald statistics tell their own story about tonight’s efforts by the Shrimps: two corners to Town’s eight and one easy save for home stopper Chris Maxwell right at the end as opposed to Huddersfield’s three goals and six shots altogether on target.

If Saturday’s display by his men wasn’t good enough, what could Derek say about tonight’s pathetic performance? This is how he explained what had happened once the action was over:

“Over the night, Huddersfield are a Championship club relegated to League One and (have) still got those Championship players in their team. They deserved to win tonight, there’s no doubt about it. We learnt a lot tonight – that’s the important thing to take away. We made a lot of poor choices on the ball tonight and it wasn’t particularly pleasing. The players have learnt a lot tonight – in and out of possession – and that’s important. Saturday, being back at home, will help us. It’s our first home game of the season and we’ll be ready for it – we’ve learnt a lot in the last two games.”

Huddersfield:12 Chris Maxwell; 2 Lasse Sørensen (6 Jonathan Hogg 61’); 4 Matthew Pearson; 5 Michał Helik (C) (20 Ollie Turton 45’); 7 Callum Marshall (22 Kian Harratt71’); 15 Jaheim Headley; 16 Herbie Kane; 17 Brodie Spencer; 18 David Kasumu; 25 Danny Ward (10 Josh Koroma 71’); 28 Tom Iorpenda (8 Ben Wiles 61’).

Subs not used: 1 Lee Nicholls; 11 Rhys Healey; 14 Mickel Miller; 21 Antony Evans.

Morecambe: 1 Harry Burgoyne; 3 Adam Lewis; 4 Tom White (2 Luke Hendrie 79’); 5 Max Taylor (23 David Tutonda 73’); 6 Jamie Stott; 10 Lee Angol (Y) (7 Gwion Edwards 58’); 11 Jordan Slew; 12 Kayden Harrack (Y&R); 18 Ben Tollitt (8 Harvey Macadam 58’); 22 Ross Millen; 24 Yann Songo’o (C) (29 Callum Jones 58’).

Subs not used:  25 Stuart Moore; 9 Hallam Hope.

Ref: Simon Mather.

Att: 5,111 (an unknown number from Morecambe.)