"Really poor" Huddersfield Town, Nottingham Forest deal in 2022 pinpointed as start of Terriers decline | OneFootball

FLW's Huddersfield Town fan pundit regrets the events which followed 2022's Championship play-off final defeat to Nottingham Forest

This article is part of Football League World’s 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Huddersfield Town may just have lived to regret the events that unfolded during and following the 2022 Championship play-off final, where they were unfortunate to fall short in their pursuit of a Premier League return at Nottingham Forest's expense before losing Lewis O'Brien, Harry Toffolo and Carlos Corberan.

Under the tuition of progressive and popular Spanish boss Corberan, who now sits at the top of the Championship table with West Bromwich Albion, Huddersfield finished only six points away from second-place Bournemouth in third, making an unprecedented surge towards promotion contention during the 2021/22 campaign.

Not many supporters had realistically expected the Terriers to stake a considerable claim, but they earned their stripes and ended up just 90 minutes away from an improbable return to the top-flight of English football.

Indeed, Huddersfield lost the same number of games that season as Fulham, who scored 106 goals and lifted the title with the likes of Aleksandr Mitrovic, Fabio Carvalho and Harry Wilson firing on all cylinders.

Corberan's side defeated Luton Town across two legs in the play-off semi-finals to set up a showpiece encounter at Wembley Stadium, where officiating decisions went against their favour as Forest edged out a narrow 1-0 victory.

However, the decision to sell two of Huddersfield's best players that year to the City Ground outfit in O'Brien and Toffolo only added insult to injury for supporters and is still considered a real source of regret to this very day.

Huddersfield Town, Nottingham Forest regret cited involving Lewis O'Brien and Harry Toffolo

When quizzed on one decision which Huddersfield have got majorly wrong in recent times, Football League World's resident Terriers fan pundit Graeme Rayner recalled that summer with real frustration.

"Cast your mind back to May 2022, we had just lost in the play-off final to Nottingham Forest," Graeme told Football League World.

"It was an awful game of football, neither team really deserved to win, Forest got a lucky goal, we had one or arguably two stonewall penalties not given by John Moss, there was no VAR and had there been, I think we would've gone up.

"Most fans left Wembley thinking that if we've managed this with this side, kick-on in the summer and build then we can have a real go [at promotion] next year. Instead, what we did was we sold arguably our two best players - Lewis O'Brien and Harry Toffolo - to Forest, who had just gone up.

"Forest have stayed in the Premier League ever since and we have circled the plughole and eventually been relegated to League One.

"I think if we'd have kept O'Brien, which would've been a real show of intent, kept Toffolo, went out and bought a goalscorer, with that very team that we had we were probably only one or two players away from a really good go at promotion from the Championship.

"Instead, we sold those two players, we didn't back Carlos Corberan in the window and he then left towards the end of the summer and we started the season with Danny Schofield and the rest is history.

"Really, really poor. So I think it was that whole decision to not back Corberan and go for it in the window that we're regretting now."

Carlos Corberan, West Brom success will heighten Huddersfield Town regret

Huddersfield supporters are perfectly justified in their ruing of the chain of events which followed on from the club's defeat to Forest, but the subsequent departure of Corberan is sure to inspire the most regret when looking at the here and now.

Corberan worked wonders in West Yorkshire, which is only shown further by the gravity of their deterioration following his exit.

He took the players and the club itself to unexpected levels, something that has carried over into his time at West Brom - albeit to a slightly-lesser extent.

Still, though, Corberan had to work with limited resources at the start of the previous campaign but managed to guide them to a top-six finish.

Now, they are top of the division under his stewardship and while the Baggies were expected to challenge in and around the top-six, few could have really called them to be in title contention.

It does make you wonder, then, just what he could have inspired at Huddersfield if he had stayed on - and the club simply must take responsibility for that.