New season, same old story as Huddersfield Town lose control against Preston

Martin Drury was irritated by the way his side ceded the initiative against ten-man Preston before falling to a penalty shootout defeat

Of all the ways Huddersfield Town could possibly have gone out of the cup in Drury’s first game in charge, this was somehow the worst one on the list.

It was all too familiar for the head coach, who watched his side come out on top for spells of the game, only to sustain increasingly heavy pressure as the clock ticked down and end up conceding a last-minute equaliser.

We’d already seen that three times in a row under Drury’s caretaker management alongside Jon Stead as Town tried in vain to rescue their season in April.

Everyone at the club would have dearly loved to change the script and start this campaign the right way. Instead, the old familiar issue has dumped them out of the Carabao Cup at the first hurdle.

There were plenty of aspects to Town’s first-half performance that offered encouragement, only to gradually ebb away over the 90 minutes.