Kevin Nagle slammed Huddersfield Town’s performance in Saturday’s 1-1 draw at home with Plymouth Argyle.
Huddersfield Town owner Kevin Nagle has promised to speak with the squad about reducing “negative passing” after being dissatisfied with parts of his side’s build-up play in Saturday’s draw against Plymouth Argyle.
The Terriers enjoyed their highest percentage of possession in a game this season at the weekend, with 63% of the ball, and they also completed more than 500 passes for the first time this season.
Town have made headway in that area, with Darren Moore’s side averaging less than 25% possession in four November encounters.
Despite having more control over Saturday’s game, Nagle criticized some of his team’s ball-playing decisions and is eager for the issue to be corrected.
“When we hired Darren, we were going to get him players to be able to play the type of football that he wants, and that’s the kind of football we want, I think that’s what our fans want, and that’s really an attack oriented [style of] football,” the owner wrote in a matchday diary that was published on a social media site.
“We just don’t have those players [at the moment]. We’re getting more, and as you can see today we were much more aggressive.
“On the pitch, I think possession time was something like 57/43, or maybe even higher than that, maybe 62/38 I think I saw by the end. In the end, it goes to show you that just because you have such large possession numbers, it doesn’t automatically guarantee a win, but it does give you a little bit more dominance in the game.
“Second half, with the exception of the very end of the game where it got a bit sloppy, we controlled that pitch, but we need some players to step up.
“I’ll tell you this much, I hate to watch that ball move backwards, negative passing. We’re going to have dinner with the players this next week, I’m going to talk to them about that. I do not like passing backwards, it’s a cop out.
“I think everybody who might be listening to this probably feels the same way, and I know our guys can do better on that.”
Nagle took to X to express his general displeasure with Saturday’s draw, posting “NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!” after his side were held at home by their now 19th-placed opponents.
Expanding on his post, the Terriers owner said: “The bottom line is, you saw what I tweeted right after the match, we should do better.
“It’s a fact (the result wasn’t good enough). I wanted to win today, I expected to win, I made a prediction as you know that we were going to win today, even though I know that we were not at the full complement.
“We played better than I think we have, we had possession of the ball a lot of the match, but we didn’t put the ball in the back of the net to get at least two goals to win, and we should have.”
After Saturday’s tie, Town has 26 points from 27 matches, one position and four points above the Championship relegation zone.
Despite Moore’s 15 percent victory rate in 20 league matches in charge, Nagle repeated his view that a change in the dugout will not be made at this time, with the owner emphasizing that it is everyone’s responsibility to turn the team around.
“It’s not going to happen right now obviously (sacking Moore),” he remarked. “We promised to strengthen the squad because we have a lot of injuries.” We’re getting some men back, and I believe we’ll have more a week from today when we play Blackburn Rovers.
“We need to give everyone a little extra time. I’m not thrilled with how we played, and I know all of our Town fans are unhappy. We’re out here, we’re kicking a little fan heat right now, we’re going to be here another three weeks, and it’s going to be unrelenting, and we’re going to look for some more signings as well.”
“It’s a top-down company. “It starts with the chairman and ownership; we have to do our part,” the owner said.
“I know we’re still in the early stages of this process, but we’re going to do more, and I’m going to push everyone else to do the same, including our staff. We’ll ask our players to do more, and we’ll improve; we won’t stop.”
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