Huddersfield Town's new options in five conclusions from Man City

Alex Matos, Brodie Spencer and Bojan Radulovic all showed hints of what a new-look Terriers side might look like

1. Reading too much into this game would be a fool’s errand

None of the travelling fans were kidding themselves that it wasn’t going to be four, five or six in the end: Manchester City can do this against their divisional rivals, never mind a side sitting towards the bottom of the Championship. Vincent Kompany brought his second-tier topping Burnley side here last year for the quarter-finals and lost 6-0. 

That duly accepted, this game was always going to be about how long Huddersfield Town were able to resist the irresistible, more than the exact number on the scoreboard come the final whistle.

For 33 minutes, Town made life difficult for Manchester City, limiting them to speculative long-range strikes and even trying to get at them on the break wherever they could. But such exertion wears you down in the end; having put in that level of effort to go in two goals down at the break, there was always going to be more to follow in the second half.

You never like to admit it in professional sport, but sometimes it really is OK to be second-best — and it’s obviously absolutely fine that Town were here. Now they can draw a line under it and concentrate of getting back to winning ways, starting next week; this is the last time until their trip to Southampton next month that a heroic defeat earns them any credit at all. They need wins now, not positive platitudes.

That’s about as far as we can go in drawing any real conclusions about the game as a whole. The players may well come out of this game richer for the experience, but as observers, we don’t feel comfortable being quite as emphatic in our analysis. This kind of game is not terribly conducive to drawing meaningful conclusions, so we will refrain from doing so in the same studious detail we usually provide.

2. Huddersfield Town fans are going to love Alex Matos

It already looked like being the case after the Chelsea loanee declared at his Friday afternoon press conference that the thing he enjoyed more than anything was making a good, stiff tackle. He proved true to his word in picking up an early and deserved yellow card for a challenge that forced Manuel Akanji to go off injured.

That show of slightly misdirected vim now out of his system, Matos went on to enjoy an encouraging debut, in the circumstances: he was constantly putting himself in the right places to make interceptions and blocks, and looked the most likely of anyone in a black shirt to get something going in attack.