Huddersfield Town suffered a setback in their hopes of automatic promotion in the Sky Bet Championship yesterday when they were thrashed 4-0 by relegation threatened Bristol City.

Nahki Wells’s Terriers would have moved three points behind top pair Newcastle United and Brighton & Hove Albion with a victory but now can find themselves six points off the automatic spots when Newcastle and Brighton play away to Birmingham City and Leeds United respectively today.

Huddersfield looked disjointed after a serious head and neck injury to midfielder Jonathan Hogg in the eighth minute after a collision with team-mate Mark Hudson. The injury held up the match for 14 minutes as Hogg received treatment from medical staff of both teams before he was carried off on a stretcher.

When the game resumed City kept the pressure on the visitors and took the lead on the half-hour through Lee Tomlin before Tammy Abraham netted a second 14 minutes into stoppage time at the end of the half.

So disappointing were Huddersfield in the first half that top scorer Elias Kachunga was replaced at the start of the second half as Bermuda striker Wells had a shot from inside the box saved by City Frank Fielding goalkeeper soon after the restart.

Two late goals sent Huddersfield to their biggest loss of the season, with Aden Flint scoring in the 79th minute and David Citterill converting a penalty four minutes later to lift City out of the relegation zone and three places up the tables.