Five conclusions: Deja vu for nearly-men Huddersfield Town

Cardiff City's injury time equaliser cost them two points that could have made a profound difference to the final league table

1. Deja vu, deja vu

A very good performance. An excellent Ryan Ledson goal. Creating the best chances in the game despite having less possession. The heartbreak of an injury time equaliser.

It was all just too familiar, or at least the last part was. For the second time in four days, Huddersfield Town should have won a game that would have put them firmly back in the race for the top six. For the second time in four days, they came away with a point that does little for them.

For our money, this result and the late deprivation of two precious points was far less egregious than against Wycombe on Saturday.

Town had an early goal ruled out for a marginal offside against Bali Mumba. They were denied multiple times by excellent goalkeeping from Cardiff’s Nathan Trott. They struck the woodwork twice. They had a goal-bound effort blocked by their own player. They conceded a 96th minute goal that should, by rights, have been ruled out for offside.

Bali Mumba’s offside on his way to scoring a disallowed goal in the second minute…

….and Yousef Salech’s equaliser in the 96th minute, which was allowed to stand

If Town had been playing like this ten games ago, we would have found it encouraging. These two outings against Wycombe and Cardiff are the best performances they’ve produced in 2026, and two of the best they have managed all season.

On top of that, if you’d been offered a point against Cardiff at the time, you’d probably have graciously accepted it; there were plenty more winnable games to be played in the interim, after all.

But ’winnable’ didn’t turn out to be the same as ‘won’. Town have taken just 16 points from their past 13 league games, with three wins, six draws and four defeats.

Plenty of those results featured awful performances. Still, it says something that even when Town have been vastly improved, and playing some of their best football of the season, they haven’t been able to put games to bed.

If they had, they would be sixth now. They’d still be holding out hope that Stockport or Stevenage would stumble in their remaining games, yes, but in the picture either way.

This might well have been Town’s last chance to make the seemingly impossible seem possible again.