Huddersfield Town 3-0 Peterborough United: Tom Lees scores twice as Terriers go second
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Danel Sinani's third-minute strike was his sixth goal of the season for Huddersfield
Two goals in the opening seven minutes set Huddersfield on the way to a thoroughly dominant victory over rock-bottom Peterborough that moved the Terriers up to second in the Championship.
Danel Sinani curled in a classy opener from 20 yards and Tom Lees headed home a corner to double Huddersfield's early advantage.
OIlie Turton hit the bar while Lewis O'Brien and Duane Holmes both twice went close before Lees finally added Town's third by heading home Harry Toffolo's cushioned knockback from another corner.
Victory pushed Carlos Corberan's side above Bournemouth but the Cherries have five games in hand on Huddersfield and will return to second spot if they avoid defeat at Preston on Saturday.
Peterborough took until stoppage time to register a shot on target as they slipped to a 16th defeat in 18 away league games this season and they remain eight points adrift of safety with 12 matches to go.
Kwame Poku passed up Posh's best chance not long after the Terriers' early double, steering just wide from Sammie Szmodics' cut-back as Peterborough failed to score for a seventh time in their past eight league matches.
By that point, Huddersfield were already well on the way to extending their remarkable unbeaten run to 16 Championship matches - the longest current such streak in English football's top four divisions - with a fourth successive victory.
Indeed, that undefeated sequence rises to 18 games if cup games are included and Huddersfield can set up an FA Cup quarter-final at home to Liverpool by beating Nottingham Forest in Monday's final fifth-round tie.
Posh keeper Dai Cornell, included in the team at late notice after Steven Benda fell ill during the warm-up, did well to beat away Sinani's initial effort but the on-loan Norwich midfielder bent home a beauty at the second attempt.
Centre-half Lees found the same top corner with a glancing header from Sinani's corner soon after and Cornell was grateful for the woodwork when Turton's hopeful effort took a nick to loop over him.
Holmes fluffed a decent volleyed chance before steering inches wide from 20 yards, while O'Brien headed narrowly over and was denied by Cornell's fingertip save soon after.
Posh, now winless in 12 Championship games, slipped to a second 3-0 defeat in the opening matches of Grant McCann's second spell in charge, although Szmodics was unlucky to see a decent curler drift over before Oliver Norburn finally forced a routine save from Lee Nicholls with virtually the game's final kick.
Huddersfield boss Carlos Corberan told BBC Radio Leeds:
"I am fully satisfied because the key tonight was to play to achieve the three points and this was one of the team's most serious performances in attack and in defence.
"It is always our plan to score first but it is not always going to happen - but, for me, it was very important to show from the beginning until the end a high level of intensity and a high level of determination to go for the result we wanted to achieve.
"It's exciting when I see the team performing with the maturity they did but on Monday we have another very, very challenging game that we need to prepare for."
Peterborough manager Grant McCann told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire:
"The first 20 minutes we were nowhere near, lost every first ball, every second ball. We made a change to be more protective of the back three and after that I thought we were better but it was too late by then.
"I can see there's going to be lots and lots of work to do with this group to find that killer edge that we need at the top end of the pitch.
"Confidence is a big thing in football and when you are losing games it plays on your mind - you don't want to take a risk, you would rather keep it and be safe, and we need to get that out of them."