Huddersfield Town Head Coach Liam Manning suffered his first defeat in charge of the club in peculiar fashion in the EFL Trophy.
Doncaster Rovers striker Billy Sharp and Cameron Ashia traded goals in normal time at the Accu Stadium yesterday evening. That meant that penalties were required to separate the League One rivals, for a place in the Semi-Finals of the competition.
The Terriers had their first three penalties saved, with Ben Close and Robbie Gotts converting for Donny. But Anthony Evans hit the crossbar with the deciding spot-kick, meaning one of the favourites to win the competition are out, at the expense of their Yorkshire rivals.
Huddersfield Setback
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the hosts last night, who had won three and drawn one of Liam Manning’s first four matches in charge. Despite falling behind to the competition’s top goalscorer, Ashia continued his super sub tagline by scoring in successive matches off the bench to level things up. From then on, the Terriers deserved to win the game in normal time, with their South Yorkshire counterparts scoring from their only shot on target.
But it wasn’t to be, and the lottery of penalties ultimately ended up going against them. Despite that, Manning still believed it wasn’t a wasted evening in West Yorkshire.
“There were lots of positives to take. It’s just probably the manner of the penalties that feels a little bit frustrating. I hate losing, so I’m frustrated, I’m hurt. But at the same point, I think it is one of those where we lost on penalties; we didn’t lose in 90 minutes, it was a draw.
“So, when you look at it from that perspective, it’s now a case of making sure that we’ve got 15 (league games) to go, take the good bits, the learning and stuff that we don’t like, so in the future we can improve at it and make sure we leave it all out there in the final 15.”
Goalkeeping Hero
It was quite the contrast in the shootout for Rovers goalkeeper Thimothée Lo-Tutala. After keeping his side level in normal time, he denied Alfie May, Lasse Sørensen and Dion Charles from 12 yards out. That secured a 2-0 win on penalties, quite an extraordinary low scoreline after Huddersfield failed to convert all four of their spot kicks.
There was further good news for Donny in League One, after relegation rivals Wigan Athletic were beaten by Reading. That result keeps Grant McCann’s side above the relegation zone, after the managerless Latics lost their game in hand. Doncaster are back in action again next Tuesday evening, incidentally against Huddersfield, in a huge third-tier game at both ends of the table.
