Five conclusions: Huddersfield Town improvement still not enough at Reading

It's getting very tiring watching Huddersfield Town find ways to lose games they ought to have won

1. Mid-table is a long way from where Town should be

We’re writing this section with the Saturday afternoon kick-offs still in their early stages, but with a trip to Birmingham City next on the agenda and Town in such dismal form, the outcomes of those games are largely immaterial. As things stand, Huddersfield Town are on course for entering mid-table obscurity.

That was the realistic worst-case scenario at the start of the season, and it gives them nothing positive to hold onto at the moment.

Yes, this was better than the horror shows against Northampton and Blackpool. But that’s such a low standard to meet that it’s like saying that sure, your shower might have broken this morning, leaving you cold, smelly and exposed, but at least you didn’t slip and bang your head like you did yesterday and the day before.

This wasn’t an awful performance — Town probably should have won the game on the balance of play — but taken in the context of their recent results and the club’s ambitions, that offers small comfort. As promotion hopefuls, Town should be capable of finding ways to win games they don’t really deserve to; instead, Michael Duff was left frustrated, yet again, that they found a way to lose a game they should have won.

The concern is that if this doesn’t turn around immediately, the promotion push everyone wanted will quickly become a remote prospect unless they can embark on an extraordinary run of form in the second half of the campaign. Town have done that before, overcoming bad spells in both 2016/17 and 2021/22. Still, this provides little reassurance until they prove they are capable of repeating such comebacks.

They have given us little to nothing this month to make us believe a turnaround is on the way.