The pressure is mounting, admits Huddersfield boss Danny Schofield

Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2022 by PA

Head coach Danny Schofield admitted he was feeling the pressure after Huddersfield’s latest Sky Bet Championship setback, a 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Wigan.

The Terriers suffered their sixth defeat in eight league games to remain second bottom of the table, ahead of only Coventry, who have played three games fewer.

Wigan led at the break thanks to Will Keane’s penalty – after Callum Lang was fouled in the box by Luke Mbete – with Jack Whatmough also heading against a post and Lang rounding Lee Nicholls but failing to apply the finish.

Huddersfield then rallied and, after Curtis Tilt had cleared off the line from Danny Ward, Tom Lees equalised with 15 minutes left.

Within seconds of the restart, Jordan Rhodes fired against the bar as Huddersfield enjoyed their best spell.

But, with eight minutes to go, Lang fired low past Nicholls, to ramp up the pressure on Schofield.

“Yeah, I know this job comes with a lot of pressure,” the Town boss said.

“When you’re not winning games, when you’re losing games, the pressure’s mounting, and I take full responsibility for that.”

When asked whether he felt his job was at risk, Schofield added: “I can’t really answer that question, that’s for somebody else to decide.

“You do actually feel a lot of pressure in this job, but you have to try and control that pressure.

“My focus is just on what I can control, seeing where we can improve all the time.

“The players have again given me everything out there on the pitch and the result’s obviously not what we were looking for.

“We placed a lot of importance on this game, probably more than the others, because of the run of results we’ve had.

“It’s a game we prepared really hard for, preparing to beat this team, which we felt we could do. But the result in the end showed that we didn’t.”

Wigan boss Leam Richardson watched his side dominate for an hour, failing to put the game to bed, then saw Huddersfield almost take the spoils before a late rally won the day.

“I thought the game summed up the Championship,” he said.

“You have to defend at times, no matter how well you’re playing.

“For the first hour, I thought we were really good value as an away team for our lead.

“I thought we controlled large parts of the game before we had to ride our luck a little bit at times.

“At the same time, we hit the post, Callum goes round the goalkeeper and can’t score, and I thought the game may have changed on that.

“They threw caution to the wind, put a few more attackers on, and you expect them to give you a challenge, which you have to accept.

“The character we showed to stay in the game, the fitness levels, the substitutes that came on to the pitch, the strong habits we have, our work ethic served us well.”