Huddersfield Town have a surprising perfect example of why their transfer policy has succeeded

Aleksandar Mitrovic has more Championship goals this season than 29-year-old Ollie Turton has Championship appearances in his career, but it was the latter who came out on top at a crucial moment in the Terriers’ win at Craven Cottage.

With 16 minutes on the clock and the deadlock yet to be broken, the striker found an unexpected change of pace to burst into the box and put himself through for what was surely a one-on-one with Lee Nicholls and one-nil…only for Ollie Turton to appear from the side and execute a sublime sliding tackle that would have doubled as a clearance had it not hit the nearby Tom Lees and bounced out for a corner.

Having kept his side ahead with that crucial intervention, the right-back sent Huddersfield Town on their way to opening the scoring.

Turton was just 18 yards from his own touchline, stuck out near the byline and under pressure from Fulham winger Bobby De Cordova-Reid, but kept his wits about him, looked up, and clipped a brilliant pass up the wing to find Sorba Thomas’ run and instantly take three white shirts out of the equation.

As we noted in our five conclusions on the game, singling out individuals from the Fulham game is a fool’s errand: every Town player on the pitch did their jobs superbly to help earn that result.

The reason we bring Turton up is because he typifies what has made this side such a surprise package this season: savvy recruitment done early, defensive solidity, near-constant improvement throughout the season, and the ability to perform at a level that few could have foreseen was possible.

There isn’t really a polite way to say that as necessary as Turton’s signing was after Town struggled to find an alternative to Pipa last season, the Blackpool full-back was