Michael Duff – Huddersfield made victory harder than they needed to

Huddersfield boss Michael Duff believes his side made harder work of their 2-1 victory than they needed to against 10-man Charlton.

David Kasumu won the game for Huddersfield in the second half after Matty Pearson’s early header was cancelled out by Matty Godden’s penalty.

Charlton’s task was made harder by Greg Docherty receiving a straight red card for a first-half challenge on Nigel Lonwijk.

Duff said: “I think we deserved to win, but we made it a lot harder than we needed to.

“First half I  thought we totally dominated and then we go in 1-1. We’ve made one mistake and given them a penalty, which I think was the only shot they had first half.

“A red card sometimes makes it actually a little bit more difficult, because they sit in and they fight even more, and anyone who knows a Nathan Jones team, they fight anyway.

“I thought we probably just weren’t ruthless enough to put the game to bed, and then you end up living on a knife-edge.

“In the second half we’ve got an extra man on the pitch, so we have to pass the ball. Conditions didn’t help, but there’s no point having an extra man on the pitch if you keep missing him out.

“But ultimately it’s a win, and a hard-fought win. It’s a relentless league and Charlton are a good team, they’ve got some good players, and obviously they have an ex-Premier League manager who knows his stuff.”

Charlton boss Jones was meanwhile frustrated that Docherty’s dismissal changed the course of the game in Huddersfield’s favour.

He said: “There were two set plays early on that we didn’t do our job on Matty Pearson twice. Our players were warned, because I worked with him at Luton and he’s done that for me on hundreds of occasions.

“Apart from that, we looked like we were in the ascendancy, had no real problems, got to grips with the game and scored – and then the sending off changes the game.

“I think what he does, he tries to clear the ball, their guy nips in there, there’s nothing violent, there’s nothing dangerous. He’s just gone to kick through the ball and kicked their player because their player’s got there slightly earlier.

“For me, it’s a yellow, absolutely. Whether it’s a red, I’m pretty sure it’s not.

“We’ll look and dissect everything and then appeal if we feel it’s really worth it. But for me, it’s a very, very difficult red card to give.

“It had a huge effect on the game, let’s be honest. We weren’t able to be as aggressive or front-footed as we wanted, but even in that, we created three or four good chances second half which we definitely should have scored.”