Gary Rowett offers strong message following Birmingham City’s rivals leave ‘weeping in the dressing room’

Huddersfield Town players were ‘weeping in the locker room’ after being denied a win at Bristol City by a contentious penalty in the 101st minute.

The Terriers were just seconds away from a rare triumph when referee Rebecca Welch signaled to the spot. Oliver Turton was found to have handled Cameron Pring’s cross in stoppage time, and Nakhi Wells converted the penalty.

As a result, Birmingham City, which defeated Coventry City 3-0 on Saturday, moved above Huddersfield and out of the relegation zone. Huddersfield’s players were extremely disappointed.

“I disagree with the penalty decision, but the boys played really well,” said Huddersfield manager Andre Breitenreiter. “Now they’re crying in the dressing room because they don’t understand why they didn’t win, and it’s frustrating. It’s challenging, but the performance was excellent.”

During their post-Coventry celebrations, the Blues players learned of Bristol City’s equaliser. Gary Rowett’s team still has to play Huddersfield at the John Smith’s Stadium between games against Rotherham and Norwich.

Rowett said: “When someone told me how the scores were going soon before the finale, I wasn’t very concerned. It feels like we just need to do our part and not worry about the other teams.

“Of course, the last-minute equaliser makes the lads feel a little better, and there were a few people who were happy about it, but the focus must be on the standard that we shown out there. And the standard we set is that when you strike the right balance of skill, hard effort, organization, and diligence, you get that kind of performance.

“That is something we need to understand and learn from. If you’re a player, there were so many positives that we should really focus on trying to reproduce that again.”