[themaclad]

5,706 all sold out for the first game !

At the end they will have that Ultravox moment, "Dancing with Tears in their eyes"

Fleetwood Town v Preston North End @ Highbury Stadium 28/7/2017

The end of the friendlies see us rock up at the Football League ground which is the closest geographically to my humble abode. Live about two miles from Estadio de Cod as the crow flies however the River Wyre is rather a major obstacle and therefore it is a 30 minute trip.
As it's the last friendly suspect it should be more or less the side that starts next Saturday against our Yorkshire frinds from Sheffield.
Will be interesting to see if new signing Fisher gets some game time also to see a first glimpse of our new striker Maguire apparently he has a bit of pace which sems to be the way we are going these days lots of Usain Bolts in the side.
The opposition lost out in the play offs last season under manager Rosler have lost a couple of better players during the close season.
Anyway this is the Cod's view of the game



Fleetwood Town are close to finishing their pre-season schedule, as Preston North End make the short trip to Highbury Stadium this Friday for a pre-season friendly.

Town’s pre-season is coming to a close and have had a good showing throughout. Uwe Rosler’s side have come away with wins against Queen of the South, FK Jablonec and Bolton Wanderers in the last three weeks.

Preston – who finished 11th in the Sky Bet Championship last season – will be finishing their pre-season at Highbury on Friday, and have won four out of six games so far. The Lilywhites have come out on top against Bamber Bridge (7-0), Stockport County (2-1), Morecambe (2-0) and Accrington Stanley (3-2) but weren’t able to deal the final blow against Newcastle United, drawing 1-1.

In their last pre-season fixture, they were beaten at home by Premier League side Burnley 2-1. PNE’s new signing Sean Maguire introduced himself with an impressive solo goal but it wasn’t enough as goals from Jon Walters and Kevin Long earned the Clarets all three points.

TEAM NEWS

Town rested a lot of playing earlier on in the week so they should all be refreshed for the home derby against Preston.

Even though new signing Maguire was fielded midweek against Burnley, he is likely to make an appearance after scoring a solo-goal on Tuesday.

ONE TO WATCH

Local-lad, Barkhuizen has started his 2017/18 campaign off like any striker would like to as he has scored four goals in six pre-season games from PNE.

The attacker started his career playing junior football for Blackpool Rangers, and was scouted by Blackpool in 2009 as a first-year scholar in their youth department. A year later, as a second-year scholar, he made his first team debut in the second round of the League Cup against Milton Keynes Dons away from home.

Whilst at Blackpool, he spent time on loan at Hereford United, where he scored 12 in 39 games, Fleetwood, where he played 13 and scored one and finally at Morecambe in 2014.

After making 21 appearances for the Tangerines in five years, he made the move to Morecambe on a two-year contract. Barkhuizen played a total of 60 games there, netting the ball 17 times before he cancelled his contract through mutual consent.

In November 2016, the 24-year-old was handed the number 29 shirt at Preston after signing a two-and-a-half-year deal with the club. Since joining, he made his mark in the latter half of the 2016/17 season and this pre-season.

Finally we did have a friendly at Padiham last night, very young side with Roberts and Meulensteen from the first team squad lost 2-1.

[Imre varadi]

Cant see it themaclad CC sussed youre tactician out twice last season all be it the first game we couldnt take our chances while playing Norwich off the park in spells at there ground the second and one of our last home games we hit them for 5 i think ? and unlike Greyboringsun you will be an easier team to get at off course our 100 million pound strike force will have to take there chances though but im going for 1-0 to the Arsenal 1-0 to the Arsenal 1-0 ... yep thats us the new boring boring bastards of the Championship

[themaclad]

No idea how we will play apparently doesn't have a Plan B and many think without the injured Clarke we don't have a defence but all will be clearer shortly.

[Imre varadi]

weve got plans abcdef the lot but that wanker cc only ever uses the one plan which is negative and shite !!

[themaclad]

Have to agree with that gets results but a bit attritional at times, same with us under Grayson ground the results out. Neal seems more attack minded see how it goes.

[themaclad]

Won 5-1 at Fleetwood

[themaclad]

Fleetwood Town 1 Preston North End 5 Att 2081

On a soggy old night at the Estadio De Cod, North End hammered league one local rivals Fleetwood 5-1, although for a period in the first half this scoreline looked miles away aS the home side dominated for a period and were unlucky not to add to Bolger's header from a corner.
Early scare for the home side when the lively Maguire turned and hit the post from18 yards, he also nearly charged down keeper Cairns clearence. North End were on top in the early stages but one complaint the build up was oh so slow.
The home side got a couple corners from the second they scored as Bolger easily headed home avoiding statuesque defenders. Hiwula could have had two more in the next couple of minutes as panic set in with theNorth End defenders, narrowly wide after chipping Hudson then denied by the keeper after some cack defending.
After a Grant free kick was tipped over by Hudson, the home sides participation in the game was basically to chase the ball and then pick it out of the net.
Cairns was lucky not to be sent off when flattening Maguire way outside of his area, nothing given by Mr Salisbury, getting towards the break North End won a series of corners, most were abysmal but the last one before the break Robinson finally put over a decent cross and Huntington levelled the score.
The second half was all one way, Browne being unlucky with a 50 yard volley which hit the top of the bar from Cairns poor clearence.
Wasn't long until we took the lead Robinson's through ball found Barkuizen in the clear rounded the keeper slotted home, from then on in it was just a matter of how many we would get.
Maguire was brought down, Johnson scored from the spot, Horgan then cut in from the right and passed it into the net from 18 yards to make it four, before a late own goal made the scoreline more emphatic.
Doyle contrived to miss another late on, still yet to score this season.
For North End Maguire looks very useful, Johnson seems to be enjoying his new role in the team and new man Fisher put in a useful shift although did seem to get a muscle strain late on.
Only criticism played at too slow a pace in the first half and the passing out from the keper will get us in trouble at some time during the season.
So that's the friendlies done and dusted a week to go until the main event.

The boss speaks

Manager Alex Neil was delighted to end pre-season on a high with a 5-1 victory over Fleetwood Town.

Manager Alex Neil was delighted with his side's performance in their final pre-season game ahead of the new campaign.

North End put five past Fleetwood Town at Highbury, and the gaffer was pleased with the work rate of his players and how they have adapted to the new style of play.

On the win, the PNE boss told iFollow PNE: "It's probably the perfect way to finish a pre-season campaign, I think the big thing for us now is making sure that how hard we worked tonight and how well we moved the ball we try and take that into competitive action next week.

"We played really well, I felt we should have been in front and it's always disappointing when you go a goal down against the run of play but we need to try and make sure we improve on defensive set plays because it has been a weakness for the last couple of weeks so that is something we will certainly work on.

"In terms of the game itself, the way we played, the chances we created and certainly how we performed in the second half I was delighted."

The manager was particularly pleased with the second half performance and was happy to see his half-time comments come to fruition in the second half.

Neil continued: "I felt that we weren't as aggressive with our passing in the first half as we could have been, we spoke to a couple of individual players in terms of taking less touches and moving the ball a bit quicker and the lads did exactly as I asked at half-time and I thought to a man they performed extremely well.

Attention now turns to the opening game of the season when North End host Sheffield Wednesday at Deepdale, and the manager is enjoying having a selection headache ahead of that first game.

"That is the luxury of having a good squad, over the course of the season we are going to have to use everyone. Everybody is going to have to be ready and the guys who are called upon will need to make sure they do the job.

"We are all excited about it [the opening game of the season], the lads will have an in-house game tomorrow which the lads who didn't play tonight will play in, then they will rest Sunday and then Monday we will be back in getting ready for next week."