Jonny Howson admitted the same failings came back to haunt Norwich City, as they racked up a ninth league defeat – with the season still to reach halfway.

High-flying Huddersfield’s stylish display left City contemplating the end of their bid for automatic promotion bid before the turn of the year, and what should be next for under-fire manager Alex Neil.

“The past few games it’s been a similar story,” said Howson.

“Put in a good performance and get a win, and the next game – certainly first half – it’s disappointing and it’s probably cost us the game again. It’s similar to Barnsley. After a good win and good performance against Brentford, we went into that Barnsley game first half and it wasn’t good enough, and it was the same story tonight.

“It’s cost us the game and we can’t do that against decent sides because it’s difficult to come back from that.

“The second half was improved compared to the first half. The effort was there and we kept going until the end. But when it’s going against you, sometimes those balls in the box don’t seem to go in.”

Howson wasn’t willing to put everything down to the Terriers’ own ability, despite underlining their own promotion creditials at Carrow Road.

“I think first half they played some good stuff and caused us problems at times,” added Howson. “There’s two ways you can look at it – that they played good stuff and at times we couldn’t deal with that, or first half we weren’t at it and we let them play.

“That’s the thing. We’ve had a terrible run of seven games without a win, we broke that and then you’re just hoping for those two or three games of getting wins and turning it right around. The two we did win, we’ve not been able to back it up. It’s disappointment in the dressing room, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying.

“If we want to achieve something this season, we need that consistency because you don’t get anything without it, especially at this level.”

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