Scunthorpe United 2 - 0 Huddersfield Town
Aug 2 2010 by Mel Booth, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
A CARELESS 15-minute spell by Town was punished to the full as Scunthorpe condemned them to a 2-0 defeat at Glanford Park.
The wheels fell off for Lee Clark’s side once Anthony Pilkington gave the ball away and Chris Dagnall sped clear to set up Garry Thompson for the opener on 53 minutes.
Suddenly all Town’s previous solid work seemed to go out of the window and the Championship hosts – who had been second best up to that point – were a different proposition.
Alex Smithies, untested in the first period, had to make a smart diving save to prevent Jonathan Forte extending the Scunthorpe lead 90 seconds after the goal and then Thompson headed over from a cross by the impressive Michael O’Connor.
Town’s uncertainty at that point was underlined when Jamie McCombe back-headed the ball for a corner when Smithies was racing out to collect, and from the resulting 61st-minute corner they conceded again.
This time Town old boy David Mirfin caused all sorts of problems with a darting near-post run to meet Josh Wright’s flag-kick and, while Smithies somehow kept out his flick, he could do nothing to stop Michael Raynes steering home the rebound.
It could have got worse seven minutes later had Scott Arfield – playing at right-back for the injured Lee Peltier – not been on hand to clear a Forte header off the line from another Wright corner, but Town regained a measure of composure after that and managed to stem the flow.
Strangely, Clark will have learned more from that under-pressure spell against a higher-level team than possibly at any stage of pre-season – and he’s still got a week to work on the elements he knows need sorting.
Playing what was effectively a 4-3-3 formation with Joey Gudjonsson, Pilkington and Antony Kay in the centre and Joe Garner in between Gary Roberts and Graham Carey up front, there was plenty for the Galpharm management to be encouraged about in the first half.
With Gudjonsson again at the heart of things and Pilkington showing some of his best touches of pre-season playing in behind Garner, there was movement and confidence and promise of something to celebrate for the 309 travelling fans in a crowd of 1,484.
Some of the link-up play was smart and assured and Pilkington brought a terrific diving save from Joe Murphy with a rasping drive on 13 minutes, from Gudjonsson’s probing pass.
Clear-cut chances were hard to come by, but Gudjonsson was switching play neatly and, seven minutes before the break, he picked out Carey for a clever run past two defenders into the box and a fierce drive which Murphy did well to parry beyond the follow-up effort of McCombe.
