Bristol City 2-1 Huddersfield Town: Famara Diedhiou scores twice to give hosts win
- Published
Famara Diedhiou has scored five goals in his past five games for Bristol City
Bristol City held on to beat Huddersfield Town and boost their Championship play-off hopes.
Famara Diedhiou rounded Town goalkeeper Ryan Schofield to slot home and made it 2-0 just four minutes later when he finished well from Kasey Palmer's through ball.
Town pulled one back when Juninho Bacuna swept home after Isaac Mbenza's clever backheel in the area.
The visitors then hit the crossbar through a brilliant long-range strike from Alex Vallejo, Dan Bentley made a brilliant save to deny Bacuna and Fraizer Campbell hit the outside of the post as Huddersfield just could not find an equaliser.
Town have now lost five in a row and they were ultimately punished for two defensive errors in a game they had 26 shots in.
They were cut apart by a straight pass through the middle of their defence for Diedhiou's first and it was too easy for Palmer to tee up the Senegalese forward, who has been made "a very big offer" to stay with the Robins when his contract expires in the summer, for his second.
Thereafter the Terriers, who had hit the post at 0-0 through Lewis O'Brien, were much improved and nearly got back in it before the break when Vallejo hit the crossbar from a mishit volley.
Bacuna's leveller, which followed fine work from Rolando Aarons, spurred them on and Campbell should have levelled moments later when he volleyed wide from 10 yards out.
Town improbably ended the match having hit the woodwork four times and boss Carlos Corberan will hope they can build on this display, if not the result, when they host Stoke on Saturday.
Bristol City moved up to eighth and are now just three points off the top six.
Bristol City boss Dean Holden:
"I have made it clear that I want to keep Famara at the club and nothing has changed in that respect.
"His form while talks have been ongoing is an absolute credit to him. There is still no firm news but I will do all I can to try and ensure he goes nowhere.
"The whole team showed fantastic character tonight. The players had to put bodies on the line, particularly in the second half, and it ended up being a great result for us."
Huddersfield head coach Carlos Corberan:
"It is very difficult to win football matches if you concede two goals through poor defending, as we did in the first half.
"In the end we had many chances to add to our one goal but the game became unbalanced through the ones we gave away.
"We always aim to create chances ourselves and limit the opposition's efforts at our goal. The second half performance was just what we wanted.
"But as always we will carefully analyse why we lost the game and look to improve."