Opposition view: Duff left fuming after Huddersfield suffer shock defeat to Cobblers

The Terriers thrashed promotion rivals Bolton 4-0 last week and would have been expecting a routine home win but their afternoon all went wrong from the moment defender Michael Helik inexplicably passed the ball into the back of his own net under minimal pressure.

Cameron McGeehan made it two after 25 minutes and a third, scored by Tariqe Fosu on the hour, left Huddersfield with too much to do despite a late rally. Josh Koroma pulled one back and then missed a penalty but not even Akin Odimayo’s red card could deny Cobblers a famous away win.

"Simply put it’s not good enough,” lamented Duff. “We were outfought and outran and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong – the own goal, the missed penalty, missing an open goal, the foul for the third goal.

"Credit to Northampton but I didn’t see it coming if I’m being honest. We had a really good training week and we showed no disrespect to Northampton because we knew what they would do and they did what we thought but we just didn’t execute.

"But you can talk about formations all you like, they just ran harder than us. We didn’t play quick enough and we only showed urgency when we got it back to 3-1. We should be doing that at 0-0.

"It’s hard for me to defend that performance. We weren’t good enough with the ball, we weren’t good enough without the ball and we weren’t good enough on transitions. I just didn’t see it coming.

"We are a big club in this league. I’ve been at a smaller club – and I don’t think it’s disrespectful to say Northampton are a smaller club – and sometimes you go into games like this feeling you really need to turn up and they did and they won the game and deservedly so.

"We have to have a long, hard look at ourselves because that wasn’t good enough. I can handle mistakes – defenders score own goals and strikers miss penalties – but it’s the bit in-between.”

Duff wasn’t happy about Northampton’s third goal, adding: “The third one is a key goal and it’s a clear foul. Those are big moments and we were on the wrong side of it but we weren’t good enough.”