Hudson needs fitness first to stop late goals
summer injury-free, means there are no excuses.
Caretaker coach Mark Hudson thought his players looked a little leggy towards the end at Cardiff. He said: “I asked for high energy, they showed that and it maybe took its toll come 70 minutes and we fell short a bit towards the end.” and beyond, whether that was Tommy Smith (now departed for fellow strugglers Stoke City) or Florent Hadergjonaj.
The attacking instincts of both players, coupled with having a more naturally conservative option on the other side in either Chris Lowe, Erik Durm or now Terence Kongolo, makes that flank an obvious target.
Both Fulham and Cardiff ’s winners have come when Hadergjonaj has not got back. Last week that was because he was caught jogging back; against Cardiff, it was because he got a hand in his face on the halfway line.
Town have a pattern of failing to cover properly for those jaunts forward. What tends to happen is that Elphick goes right to cover, Kongolo ends up stuck in a hinterland between left-back and centre-back, and Christopher Schindler has to make a judgement call on which of the two will most need his help, even if Jonathan Hogg slots back in to try and make up the numbers. The back line ends up stretched and it becomes too easy for players cutting inside from the opposition’s left wing to get shots away.
As he showed against Fulham by laying on Karlan Grant’s goal, Hadergjonaj can be a useful attacking weapon; but that trade-off isn’t balancing out in Town’s favour.
I asked for high energy...maybe it took its toll come 70 minutes and we fell short a bit
towards the end
Grant’s isolation up front was the biggest issue of Jan Siewert’s 4-3-3, and surely the reason Mark Hudson switched to 4-2-3-1 with Pritchard taken off the left wing and put back in his customary number 10 role.
I really like Alex Pritchard, and part of that is that I think he is a better ball-winner than many people give him credit for but as the game wore on, Pritchard was found more and more defending just outside his own penalty box.
Trevoh Chalobah was really good at Cardiff, and we’d be saying that