Huddersfield Town interim boss Jon Worthington said he could not be happier after his side smashed struggling Crawley 5-1 to claim a “massively important” win that sees them return to the top six.
Academy manager Worthington has been placed in caretaker charge of the Terriers for the rest of the season following Michael Duff’s dismissal with the brief of reviving their promotion push.
His first match was as good as over inside the opening 30 minutes as Town scored four times through Joe Taylor, Callum Marshall, Matty Pearson and a Charlie Barker own goal. Ruben Roosken added a fifth in the second half before Crawley netted a late consolation through Ade Adeyemo.
Worthington said: “Other than conceding in the last minute, I think the perfection of the week has been topped off there with that. I couldn’t be any happier.
“I said to the lads on the first day, we have to get onto teams, we have to be on the front foot, we have to win the ball high up the pitch, we have to be really aggressive, but also really brave on the ball.
“We want to get attacking players into areas where they can impact and affect the game, and I was really pleased that we did that.
“I think the win was massively important because it allows us to build on something now, and gives us a period of time to consolidate the squad and strengthen as well over our international break.
“I was really pleased with what I saw on the pitch in terms of the work that we’ve done over the week. I think it’s quite exciting that the guys have absorbed that kind of information in quite a short space of time. It’s definitely given us a platform to build on.”
Crawley boss Rob Elliot, meanwhile, was left with no real positives to speak of with his side 12 points away from safety. He said: “The start was horrendous. It’s not good enough, not acceptable.
“We obviously didn’t know what Huddersfield would do considering they’ve changed their manager and everything, and they’ve changed their shape.
“But that doesn’t change our concepts, and we just weren’t able to deal with the game for the first 20-30 minutes and end up going 4-0 down to four really poor goals.
“That’s probably been the issue with us. Ultimately, we concede too many goals. We had some brilliant bits of play, but the goals were really poor from us and we can’t give teams goals at this level.
“It’s just completely not acceptable the first 20 minutes and it doesn’t really matter what happens in the rest of the game, cause the game’s gone by then.
“I’ve taken a lot of stick for it, but I always try and protect the players even if it’s not always my complete thoughts – but it just wasn’t good enough and it hasn’t been at times.
“It’s why we are where we are, and I’ve got to take a huge amount of the blame as well.”
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