Huddersfield Town 1-1 Stoke City: Jacob Brown strike earns Potters draw

Stoke City substitute Jacob Brown blasted a superb second-half equaliser to earn Michael O’Neill’s faltering Championship play-off contenders a point at sixth-placed Huddersfield.

Stoke then had two strong penalty claims turned down before they finally drew level when Brown shot home from 18 yards, after on-loan Aston Villa midfielder Jaden Philogene-Bidace had been denied by the post.

That was enough to lift Stoke a place to 10th before the rest of the weekend Championship fixtures.

In the end it was a fair result from a game which began slowly, with the hosts in the ascendancy, but ended with Stoke on top, regenerated by the half-time arrival of Wales midfield dynamo Joe Allen and supplemented by the introduction of fit-again Nick Powell and Scotland international Brown.

Huddersfield extended their longest unbeaten run since the 23-match streak under Lee Clark in 2011, that ended only with defeat by Peterborough in the League One play-off final.

But it could also have ended so differently had referee Gavin Ward viewed two key moments in a different light as, in the space of less than 10 first-half minutes, Stoke suffered three horrendous moments of fortune.

First, on 21 minutes, Harwood-Bellis – on loan from Manchester City – got caught on the knee by a shocking studs-first challenge from clumsy home striker Koroma.

Then just six minutes later, Koroma opened the scoring with a right-foot shot that took a big deflection off Ben Wilmot to loop over Potters keeper Jack Bonham.

And almost straight after the goal, Stoke were denied a chance to equalise when they had what looked a stonewall penalty claim turned down after Tyrese Campbell went down in the area under a challenge from home defender Tom Lees.

But, despite having lost six of their previous nine league games, O’Neill’s Potters showed what they are made of and fought back well, especially after being turned down with another shout for a spot-kick.

After skipper for the night Lewis Baker’s 68th-minute drive was well held by home keeper Lee Nicholls, Stoke finally got their breakthrough when Philogene-Bidace pounced to intercept a loose pass from Ollie Turton before blasting a right-foot shot against the left post, which rebounded across the box to Campbell.

But Wilmot calmly picked up the loose ball, squared to his left and Brown let fly with a superb right-foot strike which flew into the net to beat the keeper all ends up.

Huddersfield Town boss Carlos Corberan:

“Josh Koroma played his best 45 minutes in the first half but he needs to extend that over more minutes.

“We were really aggressive in the first half. We spent a lot of mental and physical energy but we could not keep that up in the second half. Maybe I should have introduced the substitutes I made earlier.

“We were breaking and pressing very well in the first half and, while Lee Nicholls made an amazing save for us, we were controlling the game and everything was fine.

“There was no intention to play deeper but we did not attack well and didn’t create any problems for them. Every time we tried to play short, we were losing the ball in our half of the pitch.”

Stoke City manager Michael O’Neill told BBC Radio Stoke:

“It was a really poor display by the officials. Koroma shouldn’t have been on the pitch. It’s a poor challenge on Taylor.

“It’s a straight-leg challenge, knee high. It’s a straight red card. And then, to rub salt in the wound, he scores the goal with a deflected shot.

“It’s then a clear penalty for the foul on Tyrese Campbell and there was another for Lewis O’Brien’s challenge on Jacob Brown.

“But it shouldn’t take away from our performance, especially second half. We were second best in the first half but then, in our third game in six days against a side who haven’t had a midweek game, we got better and we probably should have got more than we did.”