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For as long as we are in the thing this is te thread Ball 31 i Monday's draw

Deepdale

Preston North End v Norwich City


LAST CUP MEETING
PRESTON NORTH END 2 NORWICH CITY 0


The game that brought Alex Neil to the attention of teams in England after the Canaries had been dumped out of the third round of the cup by North End they sacked then manager Neil Adams appointed Alex Neil, promoted, relegated and sacked within three seasons the Scot then rocked up at Deepdale and the rest is history.

LAST TIME OUT
PRESTON NORTH END 0 MIDDLESBROUGH 2

NORWICH CITY 1 CRYSTAL PALACE 1


The third round used to be a special day in the calender 32 games all played at the same time usually on crappy pitches tons of excitement, this season as with last the fixtures are split within the more segments on Saturday and Sunday, this one kicks off just after 3pm on the Saturday to highlight Mental Health awareness.
Fully expect there to be a considerable amount of changes as is the way these days . Expect Norwich to put our a team which will get the job and if it goes to a replay there is zero chance of me going.
Last season we beat them 3-1 in a cracker of a game.

Match Officials: Norwich City Home

We have one of the country’s top match officials taking charge of Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup third round tie with Norwich City at Deepdale.
FIFA, UEFA and Premier League referee Martin Atkinson has been appointed to the game, his first visit to Deepdale since September 2008!

West Yorkshire official, Martin, who joined the league lists in 2003, has refereed some of the biggest games in English football, including the 2011 FA Cup Final, the 2013 Championship Play-Off Final, the 2014 League Cup Final and this season’s Community Shield.

On top of that he has refereed all over Europe in the Champions League and Europa League, as well as at the 2012 and 2016 Euros, where his games included Germany, Portugal and the clash between Wales and Northern Ireland.
His first game here in PR1 came way back in September 2004, when we defeated Stoke City 3-0, before also taking charge of our visit to Wigan Athletic that December.
His third and final PNE game on his CV was back in 2008, when Wolves beat the Lilywhites 3-1 at Deepdale, with Chris Iwelumo grabbing a hat-trick, however, the visitors ended the game with nine men!

His first Norwich City game was also 15 years ago, in April 2005, when the Canaries overcame Charlton Athletic at Carrow Road. With Daniel Farke’s side back in the top flight this season, Martin has also seen them a lot more recently, refereeing their 3-2 home defeat to Chelsea back in August.

This season he has taken charge of 19 games thus far, his last being Newcastle United’s New Year’s Day encounter with Leicester City – having also been the VAR official at Stockley Part for the Foxes’ 2-1 win at West Ham United last Saturday. So far this season he has issued 53 cautions and three red cards.

He will be assisted at the weekend by Harry Lennard and James Mainwaring and the fourth official will be James Adock.

Preston North End 2 Bodin, Harrop Norwich City4 Idah 3 Hernandez


PNE: Ripley, Fisher, Storey, Davies, Rafferty, Ledson, Bayliss, Bodin, Potts, Harrop, Stockley. Subs (not used): Pearson, Clarke, Gallagher, Barkhuizen, O'Reilly, Nugent, Rudd.

Norwich: McGovern, Byram, Zimmermann, Amadou, Lewis, Leitner, Trybull (Hanley 68) Stiepermann, Cantwell (Aarons 81), Hernandez, Idah (McLean 85). Subs (not used): Vrancic, Buendia, Tettey, Krul.

Referee: Martin Atkinson (West Yorkshire)

Attendance: 7,616 (833 away)

17 changes between them showed both clubs had their minds on the league campaign to come and North End's decision to play without a keeper throughout the match made their task even more harder. However you cannot gve even unders stength Premier League sides the gifts that they had today.
Credit to Idah for his hat trick especially the second which he put in from a mile out but on another day probably might not have got his second and the play that led to the penalty could also have been offside but he got his match ball could be the first of many.
Norwich ahead after 90 seconds slicing through the North End defence Idah sliding ball past Ripley 0-1, took us a while to settle but we slowly got into the game with half chances falling to Stockley and Fisher, to be fair though City looked dangerous every time they went forward mainly due to their fast assing and movement of the ball.

Having looked like they could have got back into North End went in three down at the interval, started to get omninous for Ripley when he dropped a cross luckily escaped, then another through ball may have been offside but Ripley blocked the first effort, however from the resulting play Hernandez shot at goal through the keepers hand. 0-2. Ten minutes later the custodian rushed from his goal and was at least 40 yards from safety when his clearance went straight to Idah 45 yards out straight back went the ball and into the net 0-3 game over.

The second half could have been a damp squib but credit to North End they actually played better in the second period, a Bodin shot shoved away for a corner Bodin nipped in to head the ball home from the corner. 1-3 a header by Davies went narrowly wide and a Ledson effort was only just palmed away by McGovern who also looked slightly suspect but at least saved shots at him.
If we could have got another then could have been interesting however more slick forward play at the other end Idah through having seen the highlights he was offside, takes the ball round Ripley who brings him down to compound Ripley's misery Atkinson only gives him a yellow forcing him to stay on.
Idah potted from the spot 1-4.
We possibly could have had a penalty seemed to be a hand ball when Stockley went for a header, we reduced the deficit with about 7 minutes left Bodin fed Harrop who in truth also looked offside nice finish 2-4. Both Harrop and Bayliss were denied in quick succession and another Fisher effort went narrowly wide.
Strange game at times we didn't play badly but gifting goals against top sides doesn't win you games.


Preston manager Alex Neil told BBC Sport: "I certainly think the second half was better, but having looked at two of the goals, they are clearly offside [Norwich's second and fourth goals]. The problem you have with Premier League referees is that they basically do not make decisions any more because of VAR, but we do not have VAR [in the Championship]. If it was at Norwich, the fact is both of them wouldn't have been goals. Having looked at them, they are not even close - it is half a body for each goal.

"The boys rallied in the second half, they were a lot of better and we created a few chances. But when you give any Premier League teams a couple of goals it is going to be difficult. We changed every player apart from two of them so we have big [selection] dilemmas for the next match. Our bread and butter is against Blackburn next week."

Norwich manager Daniel Farke told BBC Sport: "Good performance and a well deserved win. It was a professional performance, considering it is the fifth game in 14 days. The most important thing is we go into the next round, and we are also three games unbeaten, which helps with the confidence."

On Adam Idah's performance: "Adam was great. Of course he delivered with three goals but his workload was good and his ability to link the play. We play many young lads but there are no gifts and they are on the pitch because they deserve it.

"We also had some players on the pitch who were not in their rhythm, but to deliver that performance was good. We have had unbelievably difficult draw in previous years, but a cup run is always good and you always have to fight."