11 April 2022

Carlos Corberan insists Huddersfield will not be easing up after going third

11 April 2022

Huddersfield boss Carlos Corberan insisted his team will not be easing up after opening up a six-point safety buffer in the battle for a Championship play-off spot.

Seventh-placed Blackburn are now two wins adrift of the Terriers, who moved up to third after second-half goals by Jon Russell and Naby Sarr secured a 2-0 home win over fellow top-six hopefuls Luton.

But Corberan, whose team still harbour an outside chance of automatic promotion, is looking up rather than over his shoulder.

He said: “Our target is to finish as high as we can and I won’t put a limit on that because we want to give ourselves and our fans the highest level of satisfaction we can.”

Corberan also had high praise for matchwinners Russell and substitute Sarr, with the latter having not started a league game since Boxing Day.

Visiting boss Nathan Jones felt Russell’s goal was an unintentional fluke as he looped a 12-yard shot in inside the far post, but Corberan reasoned: “I don’t know if it was a cross or a finish, but it was all about the movement that got him into that position to be able to do what he did. After that, I don’t know if he was lucky or not.

“I was also so pleased for Sarr. He’s the perfect example of being a professional player.

“Every time he’s on the training pitch he trains at the highest level and he also helps the young centre-backs at the club a lot. He is always focused on helping and I can only be pleased with that.”

On the contest as a whole, Corberan confessed: “It was a very, very equal game but our defence was strong and competitive until the end and the small details went in our favour. At any moment, Luton could have been better than us but the key moments were the goal from Russell, the penalty miss and Sarr’s goal.”

Jones, meanwhile, pinpointed Elijah Adebayo’s 70th-minute penalty miss, with his team trailing 1-0 at the time, as the key moment of the match, saying: “We were good for large parts of the game, but we switched off on two occasions at the throw-in and late on from the corner and we also missed a penalty which was the big turning point because, even though we were a goal down at the time, I thought we were really in the ascendancy.

“We were really getting at them but we missed the penalty and that gave them belief, respite and allowed them to slow the game down, which they are really good at. The second goal then ended any chance of a barnstorming finish.”

The Hatters also lost Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu (knee) and Henri Lansbury (neck) to injury, with Jones bemoaning: “We’ve had a horrific run in terms of injuries to midfielders and defenders all season and have been fielding makeshift sides and making early substitutions in almost every game.”

The best videos delivered daily

Watch the stories that matter, right from your inbox