[themaclad]

Accrington Stanley v Preston North End League Cup Ist Round

For the second time in about three weeks we take on Accie on their home turf, this time it actually counts having won 3-2 in the friendly Alex takes the lads minus Harrop but plus new signing Mavididi hoping for a similar result although this will be no easy game against Coleman's side.
Stanley famous for the milk commercial which made Ian Rush famous have battled against the odds since being reformed in 1968, have fought their way back up the leagues and with poor gates they have done well to survive in the league and this down mainly to the manager a no nonsense Scouser in Coleman.
Stanley were original founders of the league before folding in 1962 mainly thanks to that miserable get Bob Lord chairman of Burnley at the time. Stanley were in deep financial strife and needed to sell a player, they had one decent player Mike Ferguson, Burnley wouldn't pay what Stanley wanted and they folded, which surprisingly cheesed my parents off as they were both Stanley supporters.
Their old ground Peel Park is still their although the stands and terraces have long since gone. The last comeptitve matches between the two sides were in 1961 when they were drawn against each other in the cup drawing 1-1 with North End winning the return 4-0, for those older supporters one Harry Hubbick played for them.
Given we are marching all together on Saturday expect us to have a few changes sadly Harrop's niggle is a disappointment, be interesting to see if the likes of Doyle and Pringle make the squad, if they don't suspect their time at the club will be limited.
Stanley finished mid table last season with Kee top score with 13.
Won 3-1 at home to Colchester on Saturday with Jackson, Kee and Beckles, they have also signed two lads from Brighton on loan so both will be available.
Last season they beat Burnley at this stage after extra time, as I said not an easy game.

[themaclad]

Big Match Preview: Accrington Stanley v PNE
Preston North End get their Carabao Cup campaign underway at the Wham Stadium on Tuesday night, when Alex Neil’s men take on Accrington Stanley.

Both teams started the season with victories in their respective leagues at the season and will be looking to maintain that momentum with cup success on Tuesday night.

Having met just a few short weeks ago, in the middle of pre-season, Stanley and the Lilywhites know plenty of each other’s style and the options available to the respective managers, but this Lancashire derby will not be played on friendly terms.

The Opposition Manager
John Coleman speaking to accringtonstanley.co.uk: “We know a lot about Preston and the way they play. They really impressed me in the pre-season game here, they had a good work ethic and they moved the ball well.

“That night we didn’t play as well as I know we can and we had a bit of a mixed side out, so I think that they’ll definitely see a much better Accrington this time around.
“We learnt a lot from Saturday’s win over Colchester, there was some very good points and some excellent play. There are a few areas we need to brush up on and we’ll speak to the players about certain aspects that we want them to be getting right more often.”

PNE Team News
North End boss Alex Neil revealed that Josh Harrop is not quite ready to make his PNE competitive debut, having sat out Saturday’s opening day win over Sheffield Wednesday at Deepdale.

Other than Harrop, only skipper Tom Clark (Achilles) is out of action, meaning the manager has multiple options to choose from against a side who were victorious against Colchester United on the opening day.

Sean Maguire could be involved against a club where he made 33 appearances for Coleman, who brought him over from Ireland.

The Officials
Experienced match official Eddie Ilderton takes charge of his first PNE encounter since our memorable derby day win over Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park in April 2016.

That year, he also refereed the home draw with Bristol City and he was in charge of two PNE matches the previous year season; March 2015's 1-1 draw at Barnsley and October 2014's home derby day win over Fleetwood Town, when Joe Garner's second half hat-trick gave the Lilywhites a 3-2 win.

Eddie, from Tyne & Wear, is in his 16th season on the Football League list and is a familiar face to North End fans. Astonishingly, this will be his 23rd game in charge of North End, with the Lilywhites only losing two of 23 so far!

Other recent games in charge of PNE before the Fleetwood game were 2013/14 season's Boxing Day win at Carlisle, when Josh Brownhill scored the goal of the season and the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy win at Morecambe in October 2010 - whilst his first was a 3-0 home win over Gillingham way back in February 2003!

Stat Attack
This is only the third time we have ever faced Accrington Stanley in a competitive fixture. The previous occasion was the third round of the FA Cup in 1960/61; we drew 1-1 at Deepdale before overcoming Stanley 4-0 in the replay at Peel Park two days later.

It is a common misconception that Stanley were founder members of the Football League but in fact that was Accrington FC, who were a totally different club. Accrington FC were older than North End, formed in 1876 and they have a special palce in our history, being the first team to take a league point off us in a goalless draw on 20th October 1888. They resigned from the league in 1893 following relegation to the newly created Second Division and folded in 1896. We played Accrington in ten league games, winning six and drawing four.

Stanley were formed in 1891, but did not enter the league until 1921. After several years of financial difficulty, they resigned during the season after we faced each other in the cup. The club folded in 1966 and the current version of Stanley resurrected the club's name in 1968. They finally returned to the Football League in 2006 after winning promotion from the Football Conference.

After his first league win as PNE manager on Saturday, Alex Neil is determined to get his first cup win as PNE boss.

The team were victorious against Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day with a 1-0 win and Tuesday's game against Accrington Stanley is just as important to the manager, who spoke to iFollow PNE about the Carabao Cup first round clash.

“It’s going to be important that we try and win all of the games – that’s the way we’re going to go about every match. This one is just as important as any so it’ll be a good test for us.


“We will treat the game as we’d treat any other game. We’ll put a team together that we think is capable of winning the match and we’ll go there and try and win the game. Whether that’s the same starting 11 form Saturday or whether it’s slightly different to that, that will remain to be seen.

“Even in the pre-season matches we went there to win and we managed to do that. We don’t take any game lightly we want to make sure we go there and apply ourselves properly and the lads have been great at that so far so I don’t anticipate this one being any different.”
The staff have completed their preparations for the contest and Alex Neil expects to see a different Stanley side to the one that beat Colchester United as the season got underway.

Accrington ran out 3-1 winners at the Wham Stadium and Neil is excited for the clash with both teams winning at the weekend.


“We looked at the footage this morning regarding them and I don’t anticipate that the team is going to be similar to the team that is going to turn out tomorrow. We’ll probably have a few changes in there, certainly from the team that played there the last time, we were still finding our feet in pre-season.

“It’ll be a good game - they won their first match, we’ve managed to win our first match - so we’ve got both teams going into it confident and looking forward to the game.

New signing Stephy Mavididi will be available to make his first start for the club but fellow new signing Josh Harrop remains side-lined with Alex Neil planning on using the best squad for the game.

“I’m glad Stephy will be fine, we’ve got good options in good areas. The only frustrating thing is that we’ve still a couple of players who are not fully up to speed and that I can’t get them some game time.
"Josh Harrop being one. It is what it is, we’ll put out the best squad for the game and we’ll go about our business.”

[Devongone]

Can't you get some PNE fans to join you on here? You are a real bonus to this site (blush now!)

Accrington played Chapman (ex-Chesterfield) in goal on Saturday. They also have Richards-Everton at centre back who is a player I kept suggesting for Chesterfield three years ago when he was an English non-leaguer. It's big centre back pairing at Accrington if they go with it. I wouldn't fancy being a nineteen year old centre forward out to impress .......... But you're pretty sound at the back. They've got Billy Kee haven't they? He'd trouble Chesterfield, but not Preston.

And you've still got Daniel Johnson. We should have held him captive, kidnapped his family, stolen his passport ..... when he came to the Proact on loan. If all our current midfield players were genetically fused they wouldn't create a Daniel Johnson between them.

But why oh why did you have to wind Wednesday up by beating them? They are so going to tan our Carabao arses. Back every score of 5-0 and upwards to win a fortune on that one..... All the best

[themaclad]

Devon there are about four other North End forums, however keep sticking posts on Twitter to encourage footfall, which does seem to work but none seem to want to join, will keep on trying.
As for your game hard to see you beating them although they do not seem to be together as a team at the moment, very difficult for your lads but it's on the night you may just catch them on another off moment.

[Devongone]

It'll take more than a moment. If the whole Wednesday team goes down with gastro-enteritis ten minutes in we might only lose 3-0.

[themaclad]

They played like they had that on Saturday

[themaclad]

Report later at least we had more fans than them sadly they got more goals than us

[Devongone]

Mac ......... everybody gets more fans than Accrington. I'm expecting them to be in the promotion race from Div 2 though. Coleman is as shrewd as Chesterfield's manager is naive.

[themaclad]

Mac ......... everybody gets more fans than Accrington. I'm expecting them to be in the promotion race from Div 2 though. Coleman is as shrewd as Chesterfield's manager is naive.

Totally agree about Coley shrewd man got some good loannees in.

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ACCRINGTON STANLEY 3 (Richards-Everton,Clark, Kee) PRESTON NORTH END 2 (Hugill 2)

Accrington Stanley line-up: Jorgensen, Forbes, Hughes, Richards-Everton, Nolan, Clark, Brown (Conneely, 81), Edwards (Kee, 46), Jackson, McConville, Dallinson. Subs not used: Chapman, McLeod, Sykes, Sousa, Ogle.

PNE line-up: Maxwell, Vermijl, O’Connor, Grimshaw (Maguire, 65), Boyle, Davies, Horgan, Gallagher, Hugill, Robinson (Browne, 80), Mavididi (Johnson, 53). Subs not used: Hudson, Woods, Huntington, Earl.

Attendance: 2,879 (1,736 PNE fans)

North End skillfully avoided their usual second round tie at Bournemouth by losing at the Wham Stadium on a soggy East Lancashire night and to be fair to the home side they wanted it more and deserved to win.
Neil made 9 changes whilst the home side had three debutants in the back four plus a keeper making his first start. Although we made lots of changes it should have been enough to see off the League 2 side but on last night's showing there is not much depth to the squad.
Stanley caused problems for North End almost from the first whistle with our defence having a collective nightmare, O'Connor on his debut started poorly and got worse although has to be said that other new boy Mavididi didnot exactly help him out with defensive duties, only a fine double save from Maxwell kept Stanley out but not for too long as they took the lead when from a cross no one spotted the unmarked 6ft5 defender Richards-Everton who had time to turn and fire past Maxwellto give the home side the lead. Could have been two but a good block by Vermijl denied Stanley a good opportunity. North End did create chances going forwards however the shooting was abysmal and most of our efforts ended up in Great Harwood. Only Horgan forced the mammoth Jorgensen into a save and as for the corners,, enough said like the shooting but worse.
Highlight of the first half was a Grimshaw run powered his way towards the Accrington defence leaving everyone in his wake only to overrun the ball and virtually crash into the wall at the home fans end, it did make me laugh.
Second half Stanley looked to cash in on our defensive weakness luckily for us they didn't. We got slowly back into the game shots were still heading out of the ground, however 15 minutes from the end we actually scored a decent goal, a couple of one twos in midfield andf Hugill in on goal, scores level.
Davies was unlucky with a header from a Robinson corner but both him and Boyle denied Stanley with two excellent tackles in the area.
Stanley took the lead and to me there was a clear push on Boyle, the ball found it's way to Clark who slid the ball past Maxwell.
North End fans started to leave, those that left missed Maguire's chip to the back post for Hugill to level the scores in the 90th minute. Extra time looked on the cards but from a corner after a bit of head tennis Kee headed home the winner.
Not a great night Robinson had a decent game and Hugill started to show his worth after he scored but the boss will not have been impressed with the performance.
No May, Doyle or Pringle looks like the exit door for them but a welcome return to Calum Woods as an unused substitute

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Alex Neil Rues Missed Opportunities

PNE manager Alex Neil was left thinking what might have been after North End were beaten 3-2 against Accrington Stanley this evening.

Goals from Ben Richards-Everton, Jordan Clark and Billy Kee in the 93rd minute cancelled out Jordan Hugill's brace, and Neil pointed to the abundance of missed opportunities that North End had throughout the game.

It was a much changed side from the one that beaten Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, yet Neil believed the side he put out was still more than comfortable of finding a route into the next round.

"It's always difficult as we have made nine changes to the team," said Neil. "Because we have lost everybody is going to say we were rubbish because it's against lower league opposition but I didn't think we were rubbish, especially in the second half.

"First half we should have done better but we still had numerous opportunities where we could have scored but we didn't.

"Jordan's scored two goals, Callum's had five or six good opportunities - I thought our final ball in into the final third was poor and I think the frustrating thing certainly for the second goal, it was definitely a free kick."

The decision Neil alluded to in his post match comments was the foul on Andy Boyle in the lead up to the goal - a foul which Neil believed the official did not spot.

He continued: "Andy Boyle's let the ball bounce which he shouldn't have done but there's a push in the back and they've managed to score the goal from that.

"We then get ourselves back into the game but we got undone by a set play which is really frustrating as that's something we've been working really hard on. If we took anywhere near the amount of opportunities we had we would have won the game.

"We had more of the ball, we had more shots on goal and more final entries into the final third but ultimately what matters is the final score and we've lost the match.

"The bottom line is, is that we wanted to get into the next round. I'm frustrated over some performances because we did not play as well as we can but I think if we took our opportunities we would have won the game."