[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town v Middlesbrough
The Sky Bet Championship
Friday December 29th - 19:45 ko
at the John McAlpharm Stadium

Huddersfield Town welcome Middlesbrough to the JSS on Friday night for this year's annual Memorial Match.

This comes on the back of a very unexpected, decent performance against Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day. One which had our benevolent owner Kevin Nagle, commenting on Twitter once again........

That’s what we’re talking about!

A nice Boxing Day gift for all!!

Very proud of the staff and especially the players for going all out when shorthanded. Everyone played together and we got a much deserved result!

Very pleased to give the home supporters an entertaining match, now let’s get some momentum going this weekend.

Can’t WAIT to get out there for the month and pitch in.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but today was a great start!!

Today was a great start? Start? This match marked the halfway line of the season, Kev! Has he drawn a line under the Norwich game and said that the season starts here?

Two players limped out of that Blackburn game. The goalkeeper Chris Maxwell went first, replaced by young Aussie Jacob Chapman. No news yet on how bad an injury that was, but hopefully Lee Nicholls will be back from his absence due to concussion protocols anyway. David Kasumu, who's only recently returned from injury was the other. Hopefully he was just taken off precautionary. He's been in terrific form since his return to the side.

Middlesbrough also have a few injury worries to contend with, including two ex Town players. Lewis O'Brien, on loan from Nottingham Florist and Tommy Smith, have both been missing from action recently. Just like ourselves, they had a number of untried youngsters on the Boxing Day subs bench.


Head to Head



Boro lead the head to head with 45 wins to Town's 35, with 22 draws.

The most recent game was a 1-1 draw up at the Riverside Stadium. Our London Welsh wizard, Sorba Thomas fired in a corner from in front of the Town fans, which appeared to go straight in. Replays showed that it went in off the unfortunate Dael Fry to be the first of "Own Goals" entries into our leading scorers chart this season.

That was shortly after half time. Boro equalised on the hour through Hayden Hackney.

That match came just a week and a bit after we had met in the Carabooboo Cup first round. We lost 3-2 after taking an early lead through the nasty wee prick, Kian Harratt, after good work from Josh Austerfield winning the ball off an over elaborate Boro side trying to play out from the back.

They went route 1 for the next significant happening in the match when with less than a quarter of an hour on the clock, a long ball played over the top ended with Jaheim Headley inadvertantly touching one of the Boro attackers and getting sent off. That changed the game and within five minutes, Boro were level.

They went 2-1 up and then 3-1 up in the second half before Kyle Hudlin stooped higher than the Boro defence to score his first first team goal for the club in injury time to make the final score 3-2 to Middlesbrough.

Boro went on to get knocked out by (checks Wikipedia).....they're still in it. Having beaten us, they then won at Bolton 3-1, won 2-0 at the Manningham Tip, won 3-2 at St James' Park, Exeter. Then just before Christmas, won 3-0 at Port Vale. So all away ties, but against lower league opposition.

If only we'd take that competition seriously once in a while.

They'll play Chelsea in the New Year over two legs to see who will play Liverpool or Fulham in the Final.

So what's going on down in Smoggyland? Managed nowadays by Michael Carrick, from the famous Wallsend Boys Club.

Deemed to be not good enough for Huddersfield Town in 2022, who plumped for Mark Fotheringham instead as Head Coach because of his work alongside some of the biggest names in European football rather than appointing someone who as a player won.......


The FA Youth Cup with West Ham
The Intertoto Cup with West Ham
The Premier League four times with Manchester United
The FA Cup with Manchester United
The Community Shield six times with Manchester United
The Champions League with Manchester United
The Europa League with Manchester United
The FIFA Club World Cup with Manchester United
and won 34 England caps.

He had 18 years as a player in the Premier League before hanging up his boots and joining the Old Trafford coaching staff, working for José Mourinho and alongside current Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna. He kept his place when Ole Gunnar Solskjær took over from José and then had a three match stint as caretaker when Ole left. Ralf Rangnick then got the job and Carrick stepped down from his role.

He took over at Middlesbrough in October 2022 and guided his new club to 4th place in the Championship, losing out in the Play Offs, beaten at the semi stage by Coventry.

Boxing Day's line up at Rotherham:

23 Glover
15 Dijksteel
6 Fry
5 Clarke
24 Bangura
16 Howson
4 Barlaser
11 Jones
10 Rogers
29 Greenwood
18 Silvera

Subs:
3 van den Berg
8 McGree
14 Gilbert
19 Coburn
25 Crooks
27 Engel
32 Jones
48 Kavanagh
52 Bridge









Recent form - last 6 matches:

Town 3-0 Blackburn
Norwich 2-0 Town
Millwall 1-1 Town
Town 1-3 Preston
Town 1-1 Bristol City
Swansea 1-1 Town

Rotherham 1-0 Boro
Boro 1-0 WBA
Port Vale 0-3 Boro (EFL Cup)
Swansea 1-2 Boro
Boro 1-2 Hull
Boro 0-2 Ipswich


Town are 21st in the Championship table with 25 points. Boro are 14th with 33.

Leading scorers:

Terriers:
Delano Burgzorg (6)
Michal Helik (5)

Smoggies:
Emmanuel Latte Lath (7)
Morgan Rogers (6)

[Lord Snooty]

Well, against my better judgement, I'm about to leave the house and set sail for the good ship McAlpharm.

With the wind at my back I should make it in time to hear that bald headed idiots pre match rambling and see the wee truck delivering the match ball.

Chaffers however, has more sense than I and has decided to stay at home with her crochet hook and a ball of wool.

Right. Wheeere's mi big coit?

[jjamez]

I've done the opposite snoots, I went on Tuesday and have been debating it today but I still can't be bothered yet.

I'm hoping that the Blackburn result is the start of something but one swallow doesn't bring a summer and I personally think we will be back to talking about Moore being sacked before the end of the transfer window

[Lord Snooty]

Arrived at the car park and it's chucking it darn. Will sit here looking for team newsletter and hope it stops.

---

Town’s team vs Middlesbrough
31. Jacob Chapman
5. Michał Helik
6. Jonathan Hogg ©
8. Jack Rudoni
10. Josh Koroma
14. Sorba Thomas
15. Jaheim Headley
18. David Kasumu
23. Ben Wiles
32. Tom Lees
33. Yuta Nakayama

Substitutes
Giosue Bellagambi; Rarmani Edmonds-Green, Brahima Diarra, Kyle Hudlin, Josh Austerfield, Loick Ayina, Tom Iorpenda, Michael Stone, Conor Falls

---

Moore is without Lee Nicholls (concussion protocol), Chris Maxwell (hamstring), Josh Ruffels (groin), Matty Pearson (calf), Delano Burgzorg (ankle), Tom Edwards (personal reasons), Ollie Turton (knee), Kian Harratt (hamstring), Danny Ward (Achilles), Pat Jones (hamstring), and Ben Jackson (illness).

---

How bad was that concussion??????

[Lord Snooty]

What a couple of misses! How did their lad miss that? A yard out but hit it so softly that's Yuta had time to run around and clear it off the line.

Then Koroma. Takes it around the keeper and hits the bar.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

The lights have failed at Stevenage, there's a keeler in stands at Ipswich and we equalise. My man Helik (in P4P terns) the scorer.

[Lord Snooty]

Great game. Poor result. Unlucky really.

I don't mind losing when they play like that. Much more like it.

Great save from Chapman, but chuffing hell, what a jammy winner.

[Lord Snooty]

Huddersfield Town manager Darren Moore told BBC Radio Leeds:

"I said to the players 'keep your heads up because you certainly didn't deserve that tonight'.

"But what's doing Huddersfield Town at the moment is lapses in concentration and I think that's what did us today.

"We're all gutted for Jacob because it was an outstanding save from a decision that was 50-50, but we gave the referee a decision to make, but he's pulled off a wonderful save.

"But for that to come 30 seconds afterwards, we're disappointed really, but there's plenty of positives to take from it and we need to take from it and need to learn from it going forward."

Middlesbrough head coach Michael Carrick told BBC Radio Tees:

"I thought the other day at Rotherham we played some very good football and for the most part were very good.

"Today was a bit of a grind for us if we're honest, it was tough and credit to them they pressed us, they made it difficult, they're very good in transition and they make you defend big spaces so you can never really settle.

"It just felt like one of those games and it was a bit of a struggle. We said at half-time that if it's going to be chaos, let's win the battle of chaos and the boys found a way in the end.

"I'm buzzing for Jonny, really delighted for him because it was a good save for the penalty, but you can see the spirit in the group celebrating the second goal like they did all together meant so much everybody."

[jjamez]

I believe I've seen somewhere that seeing as it's a second concussion of the season the time out under the protocol is longer. He might be okay for Monday, in fact part of me thinks that tomorrow is his date due back, but that all depends how he's been feeling

[Lord Snooty]

My mate, who knows somebody at the club, says Nicholls is signing for West Brom on Monday.

But he can be a bit of a bullshipper at times.

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Let's have a look then and see how those open goals were missed.