These teams finished the Championship’s regular season level on points and they remain deadlocked after a gruelling first leg of their play-off semi-final. A big and festive crowd gathered at the John Smith’s Stadium but got little action to toast. The best thing to say about the drama was that it unfolded in a way that means the sequel at Hillsborough in three days has to be more eventful.
At the final whistle here Wednesday’s players seemed the more satisfied. “Our aim was to keep the game alive for the second leg,” Carlos Carvalhal said. His team will have to play a more adventurous role in the second leg and that gives his counterpart, David Wagner, confidence that the decisive twist can still be in Huddersfield’s favour.
“If [Wednesday] play as deep at home as they did here, I’m not really sure how their supporters will react,” Wagner said. “But I’m not worried about that because I can’t influence it.
“We still have a realistic chance and we will go to Hillsborough and search for it. We will not wait and hope, we will be active, not passive. The result [here] is absolutely OK because it’s game on.”
Kick-off here came 17 years to the day since Wednesday last played in the top flight and just over two years since the club were bought by the Thai businessman Dejphon Chansiri, who vowed when taking over that he would restore the Owls to their Premier League perch by 2017. Meeting that target requires finding a way past Yorkshire rivals who have been dreaming for far longer of a return to the big time, Huddersfield having dropped out of the top flight in 1972.
Carvalhal’s plan for steering Wednesday to Wembley soon became obvious here, as his team began digging trenches from the first minute. Huddersfield’s task was to find enough inventiveness to thwart that dull strategy. They failed. They did, at least, set about the challenge with gusto.
Huddersfield created an opening in the seventh minute after first Chris Löwe and then Elias Kachunga won balls that they seemed unlikely to reach. Kachunga then laid a pass back to Aaron Mooy who drilled a shot wide from the edge of the area. After that, though, Huddersfield’s attacks continually foundered on Wednesday’s resolute defence.
In the 22nd minute, however, a rare lapse presented a chance to Izzy Brown. Glenn Loovens swiped at thin air as he tried to clear a hopeful backheader by Nahki Wells and the ball ran unexpectedly to Brown. The midfielder was off balance as he shot from eight yards and, to Loovens’s relief, the ball skimmed the top of the crossbar.
It was a nervy contest. Although Huddersfield dominated possession they still worried about the lurking threat posed by Fernando Forestieri, who had scored in each of his three previous matches against them. Tommy Smith’s fear of the striker induced extreme rashness midway through the first half when the full-back was booked for chopping down Forestieri deep in the Wednesday half.
Wednesday nearly sickened their hosts with a surprise counterattack just before the break but Jack Hunt miscontrolled after being put through by Barry Bannan. Joel Coleman ended up with nothing to do in the Huddersfield goal and Wagner later confirmed that Danny Ward will start in place of him at Hillsborough after returning from suspension.
It was not until the 56th minute that Huddersfield forced the visiting goalkeeper Keiren Westwood to make a save, the Irish international pushing a 20-yard chip by Wells over the bar.
In the 72nd minute Huddersfield created their best chance, albeit with the aid of a ricochet off Hunt after Rajiv van La Parra’s burst into the box was interrupted. Westwood sprang off his line to block Wells’s close-range shot. That was as close as Huddersfield came.
