Australian international Aaron Mooy reflected on Huddersfield Town’s first home game of 2018, which ended in a 4-1 defeat to West Ham United, with Joe Lolley scoring Town’s only goal of the game.

Mark Noble, Marko Arnautovic and Manuel Lanzini were the Iron’s scorers on the day.

Mooy discussed the mistakes that the West Yorkshire side made as well as the league table, Lolley’s goal, and new signing Alex Pritchard.

Town made “too many mistakes” against “quality” West Ham

The Aussie believes that Town made too many mistakes against the London club, and states that you can’t do that when facing a quality team: “Their goals came far too easy.”

Mooy felt that the team were feeling positive at half term, after Lolley’s equaliser: “We were looking good and possibly could have gone on to win it.”

Both Jonas Lössl and Lolley were at fault for the first goal, after a miscommunication between the players, but Mooy praised the striker, saying that he did really well to score:

"He showed great character because mentally to come back from what had happened previously is credit to him.”

Much of Town’s positivity was lost within seconds of the first half, after Arnautovic put the Hammers ahead inside 10 seconds: “[It] is very disappointing and not good enough really.”

“To concede so early was very hard to take because you immediately go from a high to a low.”

Two goals came inside five minutes for Lanzini: “After they scored the next two they just sat in and made it very hard for us to get through them. They the used their pace on the counter-attack to hurt us even more.”

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Town must “perform better” if they are to remain in England's top flight

When reflecting on the Premier League table, the 27-year-old discussed how Town cannot get caught up in how other teams around them are performing, and that they must not worry about other teams catching:

“You can’t control what other people are doing, you can only control what you ate doing on the pitch. At the end of the day, we must perform better to stay in the Premier League.”

Manager, David Wagner, will know about the ‘magic 40’ points total, despite giving his team “no limits", and so they must focus on their performances on the turf in order to ensure they remain in the Premier League next season.

Pritchard is a “creative player”

Huddersfield confirmed the signing of Alex Pritchard from Norwich City on Friday, just in time for him to make his debut for Town against the team he has supported growing up. He almost got a goal on his debut, after a deflected free kick brought a great save from Hammers keeper Adrian.

Mooy thinks that Pritchard will be a great addition to Wagner’s side, and will be able to contribute to their attacking play:

“He is a proper number 10, a creative player, and I’m sure he will bring a lot of quality to our attacking options in games going forward. It is good to have him at the club.”

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About the author
Mollie Firth
Huddersfield Town Writer and Season Ticket Holder.