Sponsored by
Huddersfield Town: We can still pip Whites to the title - McDermott
Hudderfield's West Yorkshire rivals Leeds are rated 1-3 shots to win League One this season and it may not be long before Paddy Power considers paying out bets on them in their customary fashion.
However, Terry McDermott thinks they'd be foolish, the Terriers number two adamant that the Whites can still be caught.
* Click here for latest Leeds United news.
McDermott's words will put the cat amongst the pigeons just six days before the Yorkshire rivals lock horns at Elland Road on Saturday lunchtime.
* Click here for latest YEP news.
Already Leeds have opened up a six-point lead at the top of the division – United are 12 points clear of the Terriers and with a game in hand – but McDermott is refusing to give up the ghost.
* Click here for latest YEP news and sport picture slideshows.
The 57-year-old has been thrilled with Huddersfield's progress of late and rates his men worthy top two challengers – only admitting that Town should take a leaf out of Leeds' book by winning with regularity on the road.
* Click here to watch latest YEP news and sport video reports.
Discussing Leeds' chances of winning the title, McDermott told
Yorkshire Sport: "I don't think the title has been and gone.
"Of course, they are in a great position and we would love to be in that position.
"They have got a good team and have got quality players but it's a long season and there are going to be a lot of turns before the end of it.
"There are 28 or 29 games to go and they are not the super team that everyone thinks they are – they are a good team and the thing they do is battle when they go away from home and come back with a 1-0 win.
"We haven't been doing that and if we would have done then we would have been up there, but we are quite capable of doing that.
"We've got to go on another run of six or seven games where we win five or six of those matches and we have got the players to do that, but we have got to start doing it away from home.
"All we are doing is putting pressure on our home form and it's a good job we are winning at home because we are getting nothing away."
Huddersfield again took nothing from their latest away league venture – Lee Clark's side going down to a 2-1 defeat against Swindon Town on Tuesday night.
That defeat was Huddersfield's first loss in six, but McDermott is adamant his men deserved more, a story of so many of Town's games on the road this season.
The experienced Liverpudlian, though, knows all too well that points mean prizes.
"There's only one team that's beaten us fair and square and that was Millwall," said McDermott. "we deserved to get beaten that day and we are honest enough to say that.
"In the other matches we have lost – against sides like Colchester and Walsall – we have only been beaten by the one goal, it's not like we have lost two, three or four nil.
"Against Millwall we got beat by two and deservedly so because we didn't produce on the day.
"there are not a lot of games where we deserved nothing.
"We deserved something out of most of those games and especially against Charlton where we played ever so well and yet came away with nothing.
"That's no good to us, going away and playing well and getting nothing. Sometimes you have got to go away and dig in there and come away with a point.
"Tuesday night was one of those occasions, we deserved at least a point but we didn't get that.
"Before that we had been on a fantastic run and we have got to get back to that now – we have two home games with Leeds in between them.
"We have had that little blip and you are going to get them, but the fewer of them you have the more chance you have of achieving what you want and that is promotion."
Certainly next Saturday's game at Leeds is a key clash in the League One promotion race and McDermott has no doubts that his side remain serious contenders for a top-two finish.
"What I'm thinking is automatic promotion and I hope people don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Leeds are going to get that top spot," he stressed.
"They are having a good season but there is a long, long way to go.
"It's unbelievable how many games there are to play but we are capable of automatic promotion.
"The players over the last five or six weeks have proved that we are good enough but we have got to buck up on our away form."
And what better place to do that than Elland Road, Huddersfield's assistant manager admitting that victory in next Saturday's crunch clash would be just the tonic to boost his side's morale on the road.
Ever-confident McDermott also sees no reason why that victory cannot be achieved.
"Any away win, no matter where you go, is going to augur well because you know it is going to make a big difference," said McDermott, who turns 58 a week on Tuesday.
"We are going to one of our rivals next, but we are certainly capable of going there and getting a result.
"We know that because we have got a decent team. It's a derby and anyone worth their salt wants to play in front of 25 to 30,000 people.
"whether it's home or away they are great occasions.
"It's the people who enjoy those occasions and who are confident and are good players who we want at this club and we have certainly got them in abundance."
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leeds
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
