Bristol City 4-0 Huddersfield: Robins thump Terriers

Bristol City climbed out of the Sky Bet Championship relegation zone with a thumping 4-0 victory that damaged Huddersfield's hopes of automatic promotion.

Lee Tomlin opened the scoring for the Robins on the half-hour mark and Tammy Abraham added a second in the 14th minute of first-half stoppage time after a head injury to Huddersfield midfielder Jonathan Hogg led to a lengthy break in play.

Aden Flint's cheeky flick and David Cotterill's penalty late in the second half put the icing on the cake for City, who climb to 19th in the table, two points clear of the drop zone.

Huddersfield, meanwhile, stay third and six points clear off the top two of Newcastle and Brighton ahead of the rest of the weekend's action.

There was an early blow for Huddersfield as Hogg was forced off with a head injury after a collision with team-mate Mark Hudson. He was eventually taken off on a stretcher after nearly 14 minutes of treatment to be replaced by Philip Billing.

The stoppage understandably knocked the Terriers a little off track, and it was Bristol City who opened the scoring on the half-hour mark as Tomlin capitalised on a Hudson error at the back before rounding the goalkeeper and slotting home.

Huddersfield continued to look laboured throughout the rest of the half, and in the very last of the 14 added minutes, Bristol City doubled their lead. David Cotterill picked up possession on the right before whipping an absolute peach of a ball into the path of Abraham in the box, but he still had plenty to do as he darted across his man before poking the ball inside Huddersfield's near post with a delightful, instinctive finish.

Bristol City should have put the game to bed just after the break as Abraham whipped a ball right onto the head of Callum O'Dowda in the middle, but his header was touched onto the bar by Danny Ward in the Huddersfield goal.

And a flat Terriers performance was compounded in the closing stages as Flint flicked home a third with a classy backheel on 79 minutes, while Cotterill thumped a fourth four minutes later from the spot after Joe Bryan had gone down under a Billing challenge in the box.

Bristol City boss Lee Johnson:

"I thought we were fantastic from start to finish. The energy, pressing and quality. I've got nothing but praise for my players.

"You can have a gameplan but it means nothing unless the players implement it, and today they've done that to a man. They've worked hard on the ball, been creative, energetic and we've scored four good goals."

Huddersfield boss David Wagner:

"It's never easy after the game to explained what's happened. We were far from our best, and I'm unsure if the situation with Jonathan Hogg has caused us some mental problems.

"But it shouldn't be an excuse, we were not able to deliver what we usually can do and this is why we suffered this clear defeat. But it's football, the last time I had this feeling was when we played Fulham away [and conceded five]."