Huddersfield Town

The Town boss was disappointed to see his side fail to match the fantastic standards they had set themselves during recent victories over Birmingham City and Wolves at London Road in midweek, but he admitted the defeat showcased the difficulty of life in the npower Championship.

“It happens,” Grayson told htafc.com. “There is a way of losing games and the way we played the other night didn’t compare to the way we played at the weekend. We have set high standards and we’ve had to analyse the performance of each individual, but collectively we win and lose together and we have to analyse what we can do to be better next time. We do that whether we win, lose or draw, but the frustrating part of the other night was that we didn’t reach the standards that we have set ourselves recently. 

“It’s just the division – anybody can beat anybody. You look at Peterborough and they played well – you’ve got to give them credit as they got their players into good areas of the pitch and hurt us at times. George Boyd won’t score a wonder-goal like that again in his career to make it 2-0 and that gave them a little bit more and confidence and belief after a bad run. I think if we’d got the third goal to make it 2-1 we had a great opportunity, but straight after half-time they scored; the timings of the goals didn’t help us the other night. 

“As a manager you are always looking to go on 10 game unbeaten runs, but sometimes you are not capable of doing that because of the level of teams you are playing against.” 

When asked if he believes other teams will be raising their game against the Terriers thanks to Town’s impressive start to life in the Championship, Simon admitted that might be something his players have to cope with.

“If they are, then that’s credit to all our players and what they have done so far this season. We have to be able to deal with that, but I think that sometimes it’s more down to the fact that other teams have something to prove – they have to make sure that they are doing their jobs and responsibilities as well. You have to give the opposition credit sometimes, but at other times you only analyse your own team when you lose. Peterborough caused us problems at times and obviously Darren (Ferguson) had looked at us and thought they could do so by playing in a certain way; perhaps that is the respect that we deserve given how we’ve played.”

Grayson explained that the focus since Tuesday has been on 19th placed Millwall and he believes the Lions will be a different style of opponent for his side:

“Millwall will be a totally different game at the weekend. They are a tough team; Kenny (Jackett) sets his teams to play in a certain way and it will be a different game to Peterborough, but we have to deal with games in a different manner. We know that going to the New Den is difficult and we’ll play a strong, powerful team, but we have to cope with everything they throw at us. We also have to implement our game a little bit better on Saturday than we did on Tuesday.”

The Den is a notoriously difficult place to travel to, but Simon has no worries about the character of his squad: 

“This is what the Championship is all about. We have to be able to play on a Tuesday night in front of 6,000 fans and on a Saturday in front of bigger, more boisterous crowds. We will go to Millwall with a game-plan to try and keep their team quiet.

“We went to Hillsborough the other week and dealt with a really difficult atmosphere and we won at Blackpool where the crowd is on top of you. The goalposts don’t change and the size of the pitch doesn’t really alter, so you have to cope with the different environments. I have no problems with our players down there. 

“They’ve got good players and that’s really all we have to focus on. They had a result the other night when they were 3-0 up and it will hugely disappoint them that they drew the game 3-3, so we have to concentrate on their strengths and weaknesses and try to get a result there.” 

Adam Hammill netted his first goal for the Club during an impressive appearance from the bench at Peterborough, but Grayson was adamant that one defeat shouldn’t be the catalyst for wholesale changes to his team:

“Adam is fit and available for selection, so he comes into consideration like a lot of other players do. We won’t make drastic changes for the sake of it because of a defeat – I’ve never been one for doing that – but we might change it around a little. 

“We have one or two players who have knocks at this moment in time as well and missed training on Thursday, so that will determine the team selection that we reveal at 2pm on Saturday. We’ll travel  down on Friday morning and train in London at dinnertime, so hopefully all those that have been carrying little niggles will make it through and be available for selection.

“I’m sure if I asked the likes of Joel Lynch if he is fit to play he would say yes! I have some decisions to make on the selection of the team, but it’s nice to have all these players available to me if I need to change the system or personnel. 

“The only player definitely unavailable is Oscar Gobern, who is out for three months.”