Five conclusions: Bad luck and poor finishing cost Huddersfield Town

Wrexham stole a 1-0 victory at the John Smith's Stadium thanks to a goal that never should have stood, but the Terriers must also accept their share of the blame despite a positive performance

1. Huddersfield Town can rightly feel hard done by…

If Huddersfield Town had been able to continue their first-half performance throughout the 90 minutes, and if they had found a winner, we would surely be sitting here talking about their best showing of the season so far.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it played out. We’ll come to Town’s own deficiencies shortly, but first we need to talk about the winning goal that should never have been.

Unless there was a Town player holding the corner flag, smoking a ciggie and chatting to the fans outside the view of the cameras, the decision to allow Steven Fletcher’s winner to stand was so absurd as to be completely inexplicable.

The foul on Ben Wiles that gave Wrexham possession was a clear one, with Matty James cynically bringing the Town midfielder down on halfway.

Fletcher was standing on (actually partly over) the goal line, technically level with Lasse Sorensen — who straddled the line — but behind Lee Nicholls, who, crucially, was visibly several inches off his line. The ball last struck Nicholls on its way to Fletcher, but was bundled in off the rebound from an intentional Sam Smith shot that then ricocheted off the striker’s knee and hit Nicholls again.

It is hard to imagine how Fletcher could possibly have been in more of an obvious offside position. You didn’t need the non-existent VAR lines superimposed retrospectively, because there was a big white one drawn helpfully across the width of the pitch. Everyone in the ground saw and reacted to the offside immediately, except for the four people who mattered.

Sam Smith clearly took an intentional shot with Steven Fletcher in an offside position

…and Fletcher was still offside when it hit Smith again on the rebound from Lee Nicholls

(We are, by the way, accepting the venerable Mel Booth’s word that Josh Koroma was very slightly offside for his disallowed first-half goal. The replays we had access to in the stadium were both from inconclusive angles.)

And, of course, being Huddersfield Town in 2024/25, we have to talk about injuries, too.

While Town’s considerable injury problems have not gone overlooked, we have joined Michael Duff in not accepting them as an excuse for their underperformance either in the dreadful run towards the start of the season or their recent struggles.

Here, though, we have real sympathy. Koroma had to go off with a calf injury midway through the first half after a very bright start. Nigel Lonwijk joined him on the sidelines at the break with a recurrence of the hamstring issue Town have had little option but to risk flaring up again. The both-excellent Tawanda Chirewa and Josh Ruffels had to go off with cramp for the closing stages, with neither having picked up sufficient mileage this season to manage the full 90. Likewise Ruben Roosken, who could not be risked any further and had to be withdrawn having only recently returned from injury.

It’s hard not to be sympathetic when the situation is so extreme, and when Town managed to play as well as they did regardless.

2. …but Town missed their chances to get the goal they needed

That said, there were 89 other minutes in which Town could have bagged themselves a goal. For the sixth home game in a row, they failed to do so. There’s no blaming the officials or injuries for that.