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“Wagner has his work cut out” – Three things learnt from Huddersfield’s penalty win over Reading
Labelled the most valuable game in football, Huddersfield were the victors as they faced up to Reading at Wembley on Monday in the Championship play-off final. In a tight fixture, it was penalties that decided the game with a 4-3 win for David Wagner’s Huddersfield Town.
With 76,000 fans in attendance, Reading suffered yet more play-off pain and fell at the final hurdle despite seeing a number of opportunities falling their way throughout the game.
For Wagner, early dominance did not turn into goals and his side tired as the game went on, with Nahki Wells missing one key opportunity in the closing stages, but they held out to take the game to penalties where they ran out as victors.
Here are three things that we can take from the game…
1) Neither side was prepared to gamble
After Izzy Brown somehow missed an open goal at the far post in the early stages of the game after a period of Huddersfield dominance, it marked a real turning point in the game.
Reading turned up the heat and started to pressure Huddersfield, yet that only served to scare the Terriers into retaining possession deep, rather than bursting down the wings with pace and energy.
From that moment on, both sides were largely restricted to efforts from distance and had no urgency, even in extra-time, to gamble as legs tired and had to decide whether or not to risk all for nothing.
In such a high value game, with estimates putting £160 million as riding on the result, it is not a surprise to see both sides reluctant to go for the win at the risk of conceding.
Read on over the following pages to see what else we can take from the final game of the English footballing calendar for the 2016/17 season…