Five conclusions: Better structure but poor fine details lead to Stoke draw

The Terriers put in a more professional and even performance but still couldn't get the result they needed

1. Better, but not enough

Compared with some of Huddersfield Town’s recent performances there was a lot in this outing that we quite liked.

Andre Breitenreiter has repeatedly talked about wanting to see his side show more discipline, and for the most part they delivered that for the first time since the 1-1 draw against Leeds a month ago.

There were far fewer questionable decisions, with a lot of Town’s shortcomings down to a lack of execution, which we know is a desperate issue in this squad. Most of the players stuck to their jobs and did them…not perfectly, but well enough to keep the game fairly even.

Stoke had their moments, but no more than the visitors. Town deserved their lead after Bojan Radulovic showed great striker’s instincts to make the most of Jaheim Headley’s clever pass into the box. Unfortunately, Ki-Jana Hoever’s well-struck but soft equaliser in the second half meant they had to share the spoils.

Earlier in the season, we might have been more inclined to take the positives from a performance such as this one. But with the finish line in sight and Town urgently in need of wins, we have to regard it as yet another game where the gap between effort and reward was too great.

Our own David Hartrick has argued for some time on the We Are Terriers podcast that if Town were still in the relegation zone come 4:45 p.m. on Easter Monday, chances are they won’t get out of it by the season’s end. Results elsewhere have given credence to that; it’s no longer entirely in their own hands.