Five conclusions on Huddersfield Town's warning and super Sorensen

The Terriers survived a second-half comeback attempt from Stevenage to secure a 2-1 victory, with an impressive Lasse Sorensen providing assists for both Town’s goals

1. Michael Duff was right: there was a warning in there

We expected Stevenage to give Huddersfield Town a different kind of game from the previous two, and they did. Town dealt with it well: they dominated the first half and were good value for their one-goal lead at the break. With another positive second half, this could have been a third comfortable win in a row.

That’s not what we got. Stevenage changed things up at half-time, switching from their ineffective 3-4-3 to a 4-4-2 and ditching their long-ball style in favour of something more intricate.

The visitors looked a lot better for it, and should have levelled through Elliott List three minutes after the restart, only for the forward to inexplicably shoot wide of Lee Nicholls’ post.

That was the pivotal moment of the game. Had it gone in, it would have been 1-1 and the momentum would have been on Stevenage’s side after their blistering start to the half. Instead, Town escaped unscathed and doubled their lead just a few minutes later. Ben Wiles was left criminally unmarked to score his second in as many League One games, having not scored a competitive goal for the club at all last season.

The good news is that Town got the three points regardless, with the excellent Tom Lees bailing his side out a couple of times and Stevenage’s penalty coming too late to make a difference. (Having watched multiple replays, we are still at a loss as to what the penalty was given for, by the way. The referee motioned a holding gesture, presumably against Brodie Spencer, but he was apparently the only person to have seen that.)

Michael Duff said after the game that he had told his players not to let that happen again, calling the second half performance ‘sloppy and complacent’. He added that he felt it came down to ‘thinking the game was won when it wasn’t’.

The head coach had warned after both the Peterborough and Morecambe games that he would not stand for that, calling it a ‘warning shot’ for the rest of the season. The way the game devolved into a scrappy affair shows other sides how they can frustrate Town when they’re not at their best.