Michael Duff said his Huddersfield players did not turn up for the first half of their 2-2 draw at Blackpool.
In what he called a typical ‘game of two halves’, the Terriers went in 2-0 down at the break but levelled with two goals inside five minutes of the restart.
“We didn’t turn up first half, didn’t run, we just wanted to roll the ball around and be passive,” Duff said after Joe Taylor and Brodie Spencer had struck to level matters by the 50th minute, with the two sides eventually seeing out a share of the spoils.
“We didn’t win a duel in the first half, these are fundamentals of football. And they’re a good team, Blackpool, they’re definitely in a false league position. That’s twice we’ve played them now and a lot of the stats that we get through, data and things like that, show that they should be a lot higher.
“The only positive of the first half is that we weren’t out of the game. I think that was the only positive, because they could have probably scored three or four and the game’s dead then.
“So the thing it does do is it gives us an opportunity to get to half time and change a couple of things. The two players that came off, I could have taken off any two from 10 probably. We looked dead and buried so I was just telling them to go and win the second half and if we’d lost 2-1 I’d have taken that.
“Credit to the players because they responded, the reaction in the second half was excellent and, in the end, I thought we were the team that was going to go and win it, but it was probably a fair result in the end.”
Seasiders boss Steve Bruce was desperately disappointed to have let their lead slip, having doubled their lead in extended stoppage time due to a lengthy break for a medical emergency in the crowd.
Rob Apter had hit Blackpool’s first on 11 minutes and Albie Morgan scored their second on 50 minutes.
But the stirring fightback from one of his former clubs left Bruce scratching his head, particularly at the amount of chances his present side missed.
“I wouldn’t say we’ve ended up settling for a point, it was forced upon us,” he said.
“We had a poor four or five minutes. For their second we gave the ball away in a bad area. But when he hits it from 25 yards and it goes in the top corner you know it’s not going to be your day
“There’s a lot right with our performance and it was a really terrific game of football to watch, we just had that five minutes which cost us.
“Since I’ve been here, our Achilles heel is that we’ve created so many good chances and haven’t taken them. Our first-half performance was excellent and in the second we still did well to get back into the game after it went to 2-2. And we’ve had big opportunities to wrap it up, to be fair.
“So it was a terrific game, but very, very frustrating.
“I was absolutely delighted with the way we responded and how we recovered from that crazy four or five minutes because we’ve done all the things I spoke about and said not to do at half-time and they’ve done the complete opposite.
“Football’s a strange game, though. We gave them a really, really great game today and on another day we would have won the match.”
