FAN’S VIEW: 24/25 – No.28: PRESTON AWAY

If it wasn’t for football I would not have been sat in a house in Grimsargh from about quarter past 10 to quarter to 12 drinking beer and eating bacon sandwiches to die for. In fact I’d never heard of Grimsargh before. A mate’s daughter lives there. No corporate hospitality, whatever the cost, could beat this.

If it wasn’t for football I wouldn’t have been chatting to a Preston fan before the game who I met through working in the Civil Service back in the day. Probably not seen him for about 40 years. Without football we’d never have kept in touch. With football it’s easy to pick up the conversation as if it was yesterday.

The only pre-match establishment visited was the Black Horse. Titanic Plum Porter Reserve was on so that was a bonus. The interior of this Victorian pub is stunning. Ceramic bar, mosaic floors, stained glass, old fireplaces and small rooms.

PRESTON NORTH END 1 OXFORD UNITED 1

Deepdale has been the home of North End since 1878. Needless to say it has changed rather a lot since then and has been modernised extensively since I first visited. Outside is the Tom Finney statue based on the iconic black and white “splash” photograph from 1965. Now that’s capturing a moment in time from your history.

Inside the ground is impressive. Streets ahead of the New Den. The concourse was wide and spacious. It was quite easy to get served at the food kiosk. Toilets were plentiful. We didn’t have to play sardines anywhere. In the stand there was room too. The seats seemed a more reasonable size than those we had three days earlier but that may have been an illusion because we weren’t stood shoulder to shoulder. If need be Deepdale can accommodate 6000 away fans. Given the time of the year and games having come thick and fast I thought our turnout of 1272 was commendable.

Of the four games so far under Gary Rowett I thought that this was the worst we’ve played and that Preston were the best opposition we’ve faced although at times their performance dropped off quite a bit.

Both goals were gifts, one much more so than the other.

Sometimes stats paint a different picture to the one we’ve witnessed take place but all the numbers here point to Preston being superior and that’s how I saw it.

They had 69.9% possession and hit 19 shots, five of which were on target. We had three on target from five attempts. We only had eight touches in their area. They had 34 in ours. Of their 639 attempted passes 536 (84%) were accurate. Of our 279 just 173 at 62% made it to a purple shirt. We hit more long balls than they did and only completed 27 successful passes in the final third. The home sides figure for this was 134.

Quite a marked contrast but in the previous 14 games Rowett has managed a team against Preston he’s never lost so perhaps it was inevitable we’d not come away empty handed.

We were on the back foot from the first whistle.

Jamie Cumming tipped a low shot from Sam Greenwood round the post. The man on loan from Leeds had got away from Cameron Brannagan far too easily, with CB never quite managing to get goal side.

The hosts were moving the ball around well. They were winning the challenges and Cumming was having to make good saves. We weren’t capable of keeping the ball or really getting into the game.    

We found ourselves wide open down our left flank with Greenwood in acres of space. Will Keane slashed the delivered ball over the bar. We got away with it, perhaps helped a little by Ciaron Brown sliding in to put the striker off. I’m not going to say that on another day against another team we’d get punished for this. There was lots of poor attempts at finishing in this week’s EFL highlights. Perhaps the Championship isn’t quite all that after all.

We had nothing to get excited about. After Scarlett had been fouled Will Vaulks just booted the free-kick out of play.

At least we weren’t losing. Then having done nothing we were winning. Freddie Woodman in the Preston goal took a short goal kick to Liam Lindsay and got the ball back on the edge of his six yard box. He was under no real pressure and could have launched it if he’d chosen to do so. A white shirt had dropped into space midway in the Preston half and called for the ball. Woodman tried to find him. Massive error but the more I watch this back again the greater the credit that has to go to Ruben Rodrigues. He read the situation brilliantly, totally alert to what was going on around him and where the opposition players were situated. He read the pass as it was being played but still had to really stretch to intercept. Not only a block but he brought it under control and, with his third touch, finished efficiently.

This was so unexpected. I was looking where I’d expected the ball to end up and only just re-focused in time to see it at RR’s feet. My immediate thought was that he was taking too long. Whilst I might not have had any cool he most certainly did.

I wonder what the father of the keeper would have thought about that. There’s a big article about the Bromley manager in this weekend’s Sunday Times sports section. Andy clearly is not for tapping the ball about and putting 500 passes together.

No question this was a howler but there were lots of comedy goalkeeping clangers around in the Championship this weekend. Illan Meslier in the Leeds goal for starters. More evidence that Championship football is far from perfect a lot of the time? Or have I taken off rose-tinted glasses now that I’m becoming accustomed to this level of football because we’re just over half way through the season?

There were still three quarters of the game to go and it continued in similar vein with Keane putting an effort over the bar.

We’d looked nothing like adding to our lead and the equaliser came just after the mid-point in the second half. Duane Holmes took on Hidde ter Avest and got to the bye-line. The ball was never out although on the day I convinced myself it was going to be and that we would continue to ride our luck. The cross looped right over to the far post and Keane had the easiest of headers from a couple of inches out. Was our keeper caught out of position? Possibly, but this was excellent wing play. Cumming had his arm way above the cross-bar trying to knock the ball out for a corner but still couldn’t reach it. If blame has to be apportioned I’d be looking more at Greg Leigh who had momentarily switched off and allowed the Preston number 7 to get goal side.

Again not a lot changed but with the introduction of Siriki Dembele in the 77^th minute we had a twisty turny directness that wasn’t previously on display. He won a free-kick which was this time taken by Vaulks to much greater effect. He hammered it and the ball, having deflected off Mads Frokjaer-Jensen, went just wide.

Given the nature of the game we can’t complain at the outcome and truthfully have to consider ourselves quite lucky but its Preston’s fault if their finishing is poor. And in all this we shouldn’t overlook the fact that we did defend pretty well most of the time.

Another factor to consider is who we were without and who we lost during this match. All teams have players out injured at all times but given our resources compared to most of our rivals, it’s probably going to impact us more.

“He felt something” is a comment we’ve heard a number of times over the past few days.

Elliott Moore “felt something” and our captain has now been missing for a game a half.

Przemyslaw Placheta, who has been a revelation, also “felt something” at the New Den and went off in the 69^th minute. Although he was on the bench here he wasn’t risked.

On Saturday Mark Harris “felt something” and departed after just 10 minutes. Peter Kioso made it to the 57^th minute before he too, yes you guessed, “felt something” and off he went.

I’ve been “feeling something” for months, the unbearable pressure of the challenges of the Championship.

I really do understand the need to be cautious and not take unnecessary risks. No sense in trying to get an extra 30 mins out of a player when there’s a reasonable chance of him breaking down and being out for weeks. Does seem to be a lot of it about though. Sometimes a player who has “felt something” will be back the next game as right as rain. Others we won’t see again for ages.

At times like this it is imperative that all those who are fit, able and selected step up. I thought Scarlett did his best to put in a Harris type shift and Matt Philips played much better than he had done when he came on at Millwall.

In the previous FV I called Jordan Thorniley “very much a forgotten man”. He was Kioso’s replacement and went to centre-half with Sam Long moving to right back. He fitted in well enough and let no-one down. That’s just what is needed.

Our suspicions were right about Will Goodwin. We signed him nearly a year ago. He’s had just one start and then only made it to half time in the game away at Port Vale in mid-March. That’s the last we saw of him in 23/24. This season he’s had 20 minutes plus added time. A player signed to get us out of L1 but we did it just about without him as he was, we thought, nearly always injured. Now deemed not up to the Championship. Good luck to him during his loan spell at Wigan. I hope he gets his career back on track. Oh how times have changed. Can you image the Latics taking a player who can’t get into our match day squad on loan if it was 12 years ago? We were then L2 and they were in the Premier League.

Still no game time for Owen Dale or Josh McEachran under Rowett. Quite likely they’ll have an FA Cup run out I think.

Big news of course is that we’ve got another forward through the door on a permanent deal. I’m going to be cautiously optimistic about Ole Romeny’s chances of making a positive contribution. I don’t know how the standard of the Eredivisie compares to the Championship. He’s not been a starter for Utrecht and had his best scoring season for Emmen back in 22/23. Clips of a player on youtube never tell much of the story but I couldn’t help but have a little peek. Sometimes he looked like he knew where the back of the net was; other times his control was lacking big time. We shall see.

Meantime with a break of 10 days until our next league fixture the table looks so much healthier. Seventeenth with games in hand on a couple of clubs just above us. It’s a given though that to maintain this status or better we’ll need to improve on our showing in Lancashire.

Latest relegation odds: Plymouth 1/12, Pompey 11/10, Oxford 2/1, Cardiff and Hull 5/2, Stoke 5/1, Luton 11/2, QPR 6/1, and Derby 8/1. We’re above all our rivals listed here except QPR.