Five conclusions: Crisis averted for now as Huddersfield Town overhaul Barnsley

The Terriers fought back in the second half to render Jon Russell's opener meaningless - but was it the game of two halves it appeared?

1. Huddersfield Town’s comeback averted an explosion from the fans

It wasn’t that Town were terrible in the first half, because they weren’t. They pressed well, won their turnovers in midfield, and were clearly in charge of the run of play.

The problem was that we have seen this performance from Town a lot recently — and we have also seen them go behind to a poor goal on the counter-attack despite the run of play. Town were decent in the first two-thirds of the pitch, but their work in the final third fell short.

Even when they got clean through one-on-one with the Barnsley keeper — as Dion Charles did shortly before the break — they faltered.

It wasn’t awful, but as Michael Duff put it after the game, ‘alright’ is the enemy. You get nothing for alright in football. You need to be good at some point. And no reasonable analysis could describe this first half as good.

That’s why the players went off at the break to a cascade of boos from the monstrous-sized away support. Had Town not just endured a run of one win in eight games and shown so little in attack all season, going into half-time a goal down away from home might have seemed unremarkable.

But just like the response to the Q&A in midweek, that reception made clear where a lot of fans are at the moment. Ambitions have been set at the level of automatic promotion, and as it stands there is a very good chance they will fail that assignment.

Given this, it’s understandable that some people’s patience has been stretched to breaking point. The half-time bubbles threatened to become a full-on eruption on the final whistle.

Thankfully, another Pompeii was averted. For the first time in nearly a year — since Andre Breitenreiter’s first game in charge, away to Watford — Town came from behind to win a game of football.

The turnaround at Vicarage Road proved to be a false dawn, with normal business resuming soon after. This time, Town need to make sure they remain worthy of the applause they received on the final whistle.