Huddersfield Town sucker punch and a lack of options in five conclusions on loss to Middlesbrough

Darren Moore's injury-hit side put in an excellent performance for much of the game but came undone in a leggy final 20 minutes

1. Huddersfield Town deserved more for their efforts

We’ve been saying on the We Are Terriers podcast for weeks that there are ways of losing games, and the repetition of that despite a lengthy dearth of evidence to the contrary had us doubting whether or not it was actually true.

This game served as a reminder that it is not, in fact, a completely empty platitude – even if the league table currently makes it feel like one.

Unequivocally, Town deserved more out of this game. We genuinely can’t remember the last time we have seen them lose a game and thought that they actually deserved not just to draw it, but probably to win it. When was the last time the home fans stayed behind after a defeat to applaud the side off?

All the endeavour and confidence and attacking intent from the Blackburn game was there once again, only even moreso – despite the key absence of Delano Burgzorg, who was ruled out by the heel injury he suffered after being fouled while trying to go one-on-one with the keeper on Tuesday night. Stepping up to fill his shoes was Sorba Thomas, who put in the best individual attacking performance this stadium has seen from a home player for a long time.

More than that, the game was actually great entertainment. Both sides had just enough quality to keep the game in a constant state of attack and counter-attack, but just enough errors in them to make it entirely unpredictable.

Of course, ideally Town would like to sharpen that up to make sure things do go their way in future; an in-form centre-forward on the end of Thomas’ brilliant work would have seen the game won.