Robins on the defeat at Ipswich
Huddersfield Town Manager Mark Robins believes his side contributed to its own downfall at Ipswich Town this afternoon.
After taking the lead through Danny Ward in the first-half, a poor Jonathan Hogg pass gave Ipswich an equaliser before an 89th minute free-kick cruelly denied Town a share of the spoils.
“We’ve thrown it away, because the game was there for the taking,” Mark told htafc.com.
“Ipswich are really difficult to play against. What they do, they do really well and although it is different than what we do they are being successful with it, so you can’t knock them. They’ve pressed us and closed us down, but we’ve tried to play when we had the opportunity.
“The Championship is so diverse in terms of styles and the way teams play and you have to be able to cope with it. Today I thought we coped with it really well; we were efficient without being spectacular.
“You can sometimes get sucked into doing what the opposition do. We know we will head towards the top end of the table when we dictate what happens on the pitch and today we didn’t do that well enough.
“I’m not being daft when I say we could have come in 3-0 up at half-time, but we didn’t – we were one goal up – because we didn’t take our chance with the penalty and one that hit the underside of the bar. Those are small margins.”
It was Captain James Vaughan who saw the aforementioned penalty saved by Ipswich custodian Dean Gerken and Mark explained that task will now move onto another player.
“James took penalty taking on himself, but that has now worked itself out. That responsibility will be moving onto one of the other lads; I’ll have a discussion about that this week. I’ll choose the penalty taker.
“You have to be brave to take a penalty, but you also have to execute it properly. James has been working on penalties and he did that last week, but today he didn’t.
“He then let it affect him a little bit; he’s so desperate to do well for the Club and the lads. I know he felt like he had let everybody down, but you have to bounce back. He will next week. His contribution has been huge this season and last.”
Mark believes that Town could have easily avoided both Ipswich goals today:
“We knew they come back in games – they’ve shown that this season – but we saw what they had to throw at us in the first-half and we dealt with it.
“In the second-half we gave the ball away in a stupid area and it’s ended up with McGoldrick, who stuck it in the net well. That could have been avoided, but as I keep saying I want our players to pass it and sometimes we will make mistakes.
“We just needed to see the ball out at the end for their second - I don’t think it was really a foul anyway – but we didn’t and now we’re kicking ourselves.”
Despite the defeat – Town’s first after three straight wins – Mark is happy with the progress the team has made since his arrival at the Club in February.
“Our supporters have travelled a long way to support us and I felt for them as well as the players. We need to put that result behind us quickly and move on because we’re on a really good run. Today’s result brings that run to a halt but it’s not a shuddering one; we’ve been playing really well and today we just have to accept the fact that we’ve contributed to our own downfall and do something about it the next time out.
“The players are getting up to a really good level of performance and I’m pleased with everybody. In general we have been good. Today it was really galling to lose in the manner that we have and I’m still angry about it, but I’m sure the supporters will feel the same.”
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