David Cotterill’s first-half strike was enough to earn Blues a draw against the Terriers on Saturday afternoon.
Gary Rowett’s side were certainly not at their best and could possibly count themselves lucky to take a share of the spoils.
The Blues boss elected to make two changes to his starting XI with Demarai Gray and Clayton Donaldson replacing Lloyd Dyer and Lee Novak respectively.
On a crisp afternoon at St. Andrew’s Blues made an extremely sluggish start, with the visitors largely dominating the proceedings.
The first clear opening of the game fell to James Vaughan, but the Town striker blasted the ball two yards wide from just outside the area.
Blues took the lead against the run of play after ten minutes. The move started with an excellent lunging tackle by Paul Caddis in his own half and culminated in Caddis crossing the ball from the right touchline into David Cotterill’s path, who made no mistake as he drilled it past Alex Smithies in the Town goal.
With just 21 minutes played Chris Powell made a change when he replaced Harry Bunn with Sean Scannell and the substitute came close to opening his account moments after joining the action, but fired wide of Darren Randolph’s post from close range.
But it took just six minutes for the visitors to restore parity, courtesy of former Blues trainee Joe Lolley. But in fairness, Blues should have easily prevented the goal.
Jack Robinson launched a deep throw into the Blues box and whilst the Blues defence dallied and failed to clear their lines, Lolley got to the ball first and stabbed it home from just yards out.
Blues fashioned a good opening just after the half-hour mark when Demarai Gray’s cross found Andy Shinnie, but the Scot saw his headed effort well-saved by Smithies who turned the ball behind for a corner.
At the other end of the pitch, Blues were continuing to live dangerously and Jacob Butterfield saw his low shot miss by a whisker.
Seconds before the break, Randolph was forced to pull off a fine diving save to deny Joel Lynch’s header following a corner.
Half-time: Blues 1 Huddersfield Town 1
Blues made a slightly better start to the second period of the match, than they had the first. But they were still guilty of far too much sloppy play and were found lacking in their final ball when they did break forward.
The home support were understandably becoming frustrated with the action out on the pitch, as Town were showing greater desire and looking a yard quicker to the ball than Rowett’s charges.
But with 66 minutes on the clock Blues came close to regaining the lead when they were awarded a free-kick just outside the box. Cotterill stepped over it and Caddis ran up and curled a great effort towards the top corner but Smithies was equal to it and pushed it over for a corner.
Blues made their first substitution when Wes Thomas was sent on for Shinnie after 68 minutes.
Thomas’ introduction almost paid immediate dividends as the Blues number ten was only denied a goal thanks to a superb last-gasp challenge by Terriers captain Mark Hudson deep inside his own area.
Blues were now enjoying their most productive spell of the game, without capitalising on it.
On 75 minutes Nikola Zigic joined the action in place of Clayton Donaldson. Then on 82 Lloyd Dyer replaced Gray.
With two minutes of normal time remaining Dyer burst down the left but his run ended with him firing into the side netting.
But that was to be the final chance for either side.