Huddersfield head coach Carlos Corberan praised the mentality of his players after a 2-0 win against Birmingham at St Andrew’s.
A first-half own goal from Birmingham captain Gary Gardner and Lewis O’Brien’s second made it 15 games unbeaten in the Sky Bet Championship and moved the Terriers up to third place in the table.
“It’s down to many things – we’re in this dynamic, they’re giving the best they can, the mentality of the players, the desire to play game by game and the positive performances,” said Corberan.
“We have a strong mentality – it’s impossible to compete in the Championship if not.
“Just as one example, (goalkeeper) Lee Nicholls has had many good performances and helped earn us a lot of points.
“It’s not easy to achieve 100 per cent commitment every time you’re on the pitch, but the players are taking a lot of responsibility and putting in a lot of desire to compete.
“If you add that to good skills it helps us compete in the level we are competing. My work is to try to coordinate and organise them.
“When you have the will and desire, but it is not organised, the efficiency and desire is less.”
Juninho Bacuna and Onel Hernandez hit the woodwork for Birmingham in an improved second-half performance.
But ultimately, the Terriers were fairly comfortable as they made it three straight wins and 31 points from their last 45 available.
Birmingham head coach Lee Bowyer is already without centre-backs Marc Roberts and George Friend because of injury then lost makeshift centre-half Maxime Colin after 25 minutes with a thigh strain. Striker Lyle Taylor pulled out with a tight groin in the warm-up.
Bowyer admitted his makeshift defence did not do enough to stop the goals against.
“I thought we started brightly, but the goals conceded were soft again – a set-piece and the one just before half-time, which made it a lot more difficult,” said Bowyer.
“Other than that I thought we asked questions of them defensively, and we moved the ball well at times.
“But just that little bit of quality (wasn’t there); we hit the first man too many times on crosses, and we were shooting a bit wild.
“In the second half we had a go, but it wouldn’t go in for us and we hit the woodwork twice – the keeper made an unbelievable save, but I can’t fault the players.
“They are trying and they are giving everything.”
Huddersfield took a 27th-minute lead when poor Birmingham defending allowed Sorba Thomas’ inswinging corner to find on-loan Chelsea defender Levi Colwill to chest the ball at the far post and it went in off Gardner.
O’Brien made it 2-0 in the 44th minute after more catastrophic Blues defending.
Gardner made a hash of his clearance across his own box, where Jeremie Bela could not keep out O’Brien, who sidefooted home.
Birmingham improved after the break and hit the woodwork twice as Lee tipped shots from Bacuna and Hernandez onto the woodwork.
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