Town's Head Coach assesses the defeat
- David Wagner reviews defeat at Boro
- Head Coach disappointed with nature of the goals conceded
- Wagner knows Town can - and will - improve
Huddersfield Town Head Coach David Wagner says his side deserved to lose to Middlesbrough tonight and was disappointed with the nature of the goals conceded in the 3-0 away defeat.
“We play every game with a target to win, always. We always know how good our opponent probably will be and today Middlesbrough was as good as we expected. At the end we tried to win this game, but Middlesbrough was better than us today.
“In the end Middlesbrough deserved this result, but the goals we conceded are too easy- all three of them. We made too many easy mistakes in our first touch and we were nervous, especially across our back line.
“Today we did not have the quality to play as stable as we did on Saturday and this was a disappointing result, as was the performance in the first half. We have to say they were better than us.
“At the end, I don't think that we deserved to score in this game because we were not good enough today.
“If you like to be successful against Middlesbrough in this period of the season, when they are very focused, then you have to make every simple thing right; every first touch has to be right and you have to make correct decisions. You have to play the right passes. You have to stop the opponent in dangerous areas and you have to be clinical. You have to use free kicks when you have them. There are thousands and thousands of small things you have in a game that you have to make right to be successful against such a strong side.
“If you make mistakes, then you will lose and if you make a lot of mistakes you will lose 3-0 like we did today.”
However, Wagner knows his side can – and will – perform much better than it did on Teeside tonight.
“I can accept this defeat, because I know each player is able to do better than they did today. They’ve shown it in the past. The players tried and worked tonight, but we were too sloppy tonight.
“We know that we have individual quality, but we have to keep working so that everything about our game is more natural and consistent.
“We still have to make good decisions on which players we keep fresh in this busy period. Tonight Nahki got a yellow card and the referee told us he would be sent off for another foul, so this is something we thought about as well.
“I can leave this game and result behind me very quickly because I know exactly what our problems were against a very strong side.
“I promise we will try again and work as hard as we can once again on Saturday. If we make all the little things better that we didn’t do well tonight, the result will be better.”
