Five conclusions: Huddersfield Town too meek and soft to be promotion contenders

Cardiff City hammered home the point as they claimed a 3-2 win over the Terriers. There's time for the story to change, but dropping points against top half sides has worn very thin

1. Huddersfield Town haven’t shown they deserve to be in the automatic promotion picture

Here we are again, then. Another big away game and a chance for Town to make a statement, only to come up short.

In isolation, losing away to the league leaders isn’t season-destroying by any means. But when are we going to see a season-making performance and result from Huddersfield Town?

We didn’t get it against Bradford. We didn’t get it against Stockport. We didn’t get it against Bolton. We didn’t get it against Wycombe. We didn’t get it against Luton. We didn’t get it against Wimbledon.

Town have 22 points from nine games against sides in the bottom half of the table, but they now have just four points from eight games against the rest of the top half. The 1-0 victory at home to Stevenage early in the campaign is the only one they’ve won.

There’s a term for these kinds of sides: flat-track bullies. Town can happily turn up and put three past Plymouth, Peterborough or Mansfield, but put a good side in front of them, and they’re going to lose. Chances are, those opponents will get two or three goals in the process.

It’s getting very frustrating now. With the division as tight as it is, even a handful more points would have Town in the automatic promotion places. But their league position doesn’t lie, and until Town find a way to start winning at least some of these kinds of games, that’s exactly where they’ll stay.

Lee Grant joined us for his post-match press conference immediately after we had finished writing all of that. He said almost the same thing, feeling that his players had shown Cardiff too much respect, putting their woes against the division’s better sides down to a mentality issue. True though that may be, he needs to find a way to change the story.

2. Lee Grant didn’t learn his lessons from Luton with this selection