[themaclad]

The jewels of the sporting summer have all come and gone Le Tour, Wimbledon, The Open and the World Cup, life is dull there is nothing to look forward too apart from the nights drawing in and the temperature dropping below 70, how wrong could you be Friday night the English football season begins as Frankie boy takes his Direby side to Reading.
Another season of high hopes which can be dashed early on seemed to remember Chesterfield scoring within 90 seconds on the opening day as they stuffed us 4-1 at Deepdale. Endless optimism throughout the land as your team prepares to sweep all aside and win whichever league it is.
First up are Queens Park Rangers who have just been hit with a transfer ban for the next transfer window after apparently breaking the rules for buying their way into the Premiership, surprised to realise they are still getting a parachute payment(the joys of being rewarded for being crap.
Holloway left at the end of the season they have appointed Dutch speaking manager Steve McLaren, his last job was as a consulting consultant to Maccabi Tel Aviv obvious has bank balance has been improved he's back for another crack at the English game.
His last English job was at Pride Park Derby, good news for Steve is weather forecast is decent.


This is a picture of Steve realising last time he managed against North End he got potted within days.




Rangers have signed Toni Leister from Union Berlin but have lost Robinson to Forest and Smithies to Cardiff.

North End personal view staring line up will be basically the same 11 that started at Oldham only doubt appears to be be Johnson and Bodin misses this match after getting a red card for falling over against Burton on the last day of the season and the fact he's now done his ACL means he will miss six months. Maguire also now out for three months so my reliable source indicated we are looking at possibly two replacements one familiar and one who does tend to go out on loan a few times to clubs in our area.

Neil is still hoping to bolster the side with yet another striker but knowing how it works this is the squad which will take us until the transfer window in January
Big season coming up fully expect promotion party at Brentford in May

T'other games

Read v Der
Brum v Nor
Brent  v Royh
Brizzle v Forest
Ips v Black
Mill v Midd
Sheff U v Swan
WBA v Trotters
Pies v Owls
Sky Utd v Stoke
Hull v Villa


Ref Watch: Queens Park Rangers
Taking charge of our first Championship game of the new 2018/19 season will be match official Darren England.

Last season, his first on the Select Group Two list, saw Darren take charge of three North End games, our draw at Middlesbrough in August, the 2-2 clash with Fulham at Craven Cottage and the 1-1 draw with Aston Villa in February, so this is his first visit to Deepdale.

Last season he was the referee for just one Queens Park Rangers game, their final match of the season in May, when they lost 2-0 away at Leeds United.

In total in 2017/18 he officiated in 39 games, issuing 149 cautions and just two red cards, his last game being the League Two Play-Off Final at Wembley between Coventry City and Exeter City.

This weekend – like at Aston Villa last season - he will be assisted by Nick Greenhalgh and James Mainwaring, whilst the fourth official will be Tom Nield.

Changes to the ground are the television gantry is now in the Finney we have epileptic electronic adverts and season ticket cards what could go possibly wrong.

Televisual highlights are now on Quest Channel 144 if you have Sky.

It's time bring it on

[themaclad]

Preston North End 1 Browne Queens Park Rangers 0

PNE: Rudd, Fisher, Clarke, Davies, Hughes, Pearson, Browne, Barkhuizen (Horgan 70), Harrop (Ledson 83), Robinson, Moult (Gallagher 76). Subs (not used): Woods, Burke, Huntington, Maxwell.
QPR: Ingram, Kakay, Leistner, Lynch, Bidwell, Scowen, Luongo (Smyth 66), Osayi-Samuel (Manning 46), Eze, Freeman, Smith (Sylla 76). Subs (not used): Cousins, Washington, Baptiste, Lumley.
Referee: Darren England (Barnsley) Attendance: 13,418 (1,064 QPR)

Cannot beat a win on the first day of the season over a well organised but ambitiously limited QPR who were quite happy to soak up the pressure and try and catch us on the break, they nearly sneaked a point which they would not have deserved when Sylla's close range effort led to Rudd pulling out a worldie two minutes from time.
North End started brightly played some neat build up play but when we got towards the Rangers area we seemed to run out of ideas, two Barkhuizen efforts one wide and one tipped round the post by Ingram, did have other shots on goal but they all seemed to hit the decent looking Rangers captain Leistner.
Towards half time Rangers came more into the game this coincided with the manager leaving his place in the gantry to stand on the touchline, they probably should have scored when Freeman's free kick was met by Smith's header he put it wide should have done better.

North End took the lead within five minutes of the re start Harrop's free kick to beyond the back stick, Browne's looping header dropped towards the back post Luongo tried to head clear but failed.
In truth not a lot really happened after that as both sets of players tired then came Rudd's save, North End finished with 10 as Clarke suffered concussion and had to leave the field a couple of corners were scrambled away but the end result is three points on the board.

Result is a positive think we definitely need another forward, Moult did well but needs players closer to him, Pearson was Pearson as per usual, though Davies outstanding against Smith who is an awkward opponent.
Rangers if they loose Freeman could be a long season given the FFP gobbins that they are under, both centre backs played well with the German Leistner looking a decent recruit.
With cricket commitments last Saturday game until 25/9/2018 although the English weather could change that

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Alex Neil cut a satisfied figure after today’s opening day victory, and picked out several traits from his team this afternoon which pleased him most.

North End recorded their first three points of the season at the first time of asking thanks to Alan Browne’s effort five minutes into the second half, and the Scotsman spoke about his side being disciplined at the back and aggressive in attack.

“When you need to dig in when you’re not dominating, defend your box and expect your goalkeeper to make quality saves and be organised and I thought we showed all of those traits so all in all - I’m just delighted to get the three points and get off to a good start to the season to build on.

“It was a good performance from us. Certainly first half we didn’t get what we deserved in terms of the goals because we had some good chances and a lot of good chances to make good chances!”

The manager did feel however that his side needed to be more clinical in front of goal, something which the manager pointed out a number of times last season, and the PNE boss admitted he’s still looking for more goals from his team this time out.

“We didn’t really look as damaging in that final third as I’d have liked but all in all, we had 64 percent possession with more shots than them in the game, more chances than them and we did what we needed to do," assessed the PNE boss.

“We worked the ball for three quarters of the pitch really well to create chances but we really need to have better quality in that area. We’re still trying to get better in them areas, and we know we need to strengthen in them areas but today what we did more than enough to win the game.

“Last year we missed a lot of opportunities and we went a lot more aggressive in terms of the starting line-up today because we knew we needed to win this game, and especially at home we needed to score more goals so I’m very conscious with that.

“I think you can see with putting Josh Harrop in there running in behind and making it really difficult to pick them players up. We’d worked a lot on our movement at the top end and it was excellent but it’s that final bit of quality where you need somebody to take the game by the scruff of the neck and put the ball in the back of the net.”

It wasn’t all plain sailing for the Lilywhites, with Declan Rudd notably making a terrific save late in the game, coupled with Tom Clarke having to leave the field two minutes from time with a head injury leaving North End a man short, and the manager praised his side for the grit and their determination to keep the clean sheet and get the win.

“Towards the end, Tom goes off and we have to hang on a little bit but we definitely deserved the win,” continued Alex.

“We’d made our three subs and Tom then wins a great header but he then has to come off, and we then have to patch it up at the back just to see it through but I thought over the course of the game we deserved the win.



STEVE McClaren admitted his QPR side “didn’t do enough” to get anything from their opening game of the season at Preston on Saturday afternoon.

The R’s lost 1-0, with Lilywhites central midfielder Alan Browne netting the winner early in the second half with a looping header from a Josh Harrop free-kick.

“You can have all the games in pre-season but you really find out about your team in the first match of the season,” said McClaren following his first competitive fixture as QPR boss.

We need to release the shackles and go and play like we know we can.

It was always going to be a very difficult game and we lost it on a set-play. We defended quite well and Matt Ingram only had one save to make but we didn’t do enough to win the game.”

Matt Smith went close for the R’s in the first-half while substitute Idrissa Sylla nearly snatched a draw late on but was denied by a stunning stop from home keeper Declan Rudd.

“We had a couple of chances and right at the end their keeper made a great save from Sylla,” McClaren added.

“That’s where you need a little bit of luck for the ball to go in and from there the belief will grow. I think we lacked that a little bit today.

“We need to release the shackles and go and play like we know we can.”

McClaren brought Ryan Manning on at the break for Bright Osayi-Samuel, while Paul Smyth and Sylla came on in the second half for Mass Luongo and Smith respectively.

“I thought the subs made a bit of an impact,” McClaren said. “Preston were dominating the midfield so we tried to quell that and I thought we did to a certain degree.

“But again we didn’t release the shackles when we had the ball and if we had done that we would have caused them more problems.”

The R’s chief will now be aiming to lift his players ahead of next weekend’s first home game of the season as we play host to Sheffield United.

“We’re disappointed and the players are disappointed,” he admitted. “We could have got something from the game but we didn’t do

[Imre varadi]

themaclads a moderator congrats

Good 3pts again on the first day even though you always get easy pickings on the first day did you cheat like last season

[themaclad]

No we don't cheat and we'll never get done on FFP either

[St Charles Owl]

No we don't cheat and we'll never get done on FFP either

You would actually have to spend some money to get done by FFP!!!

[themaclad]

Very true live within our frugal means

[themaclad]

Personal view think we are going down the Brentford route bring in promising youngsters polish them up sell on.

[Imre varadi]

ive got you as the dark horse this year for the playoffs youve been building up nicely the last 2 seasons ! although it i think it will be a bridge too far as the teams in the playoffs are getting bigger and bigger Villa lost out last season in the final to a better Fulham team that was a toss of a coing realy ! but with swansea stoke villa borro leeds and derby and maybe even forest ? its going to be a right old slog the playoffs .. personally i hope we dont get in them .. offcourse i want us to go up but for me its either second as weve never ever won this divison since 19 o plonk ! or bollocks to it ! 3 playoff fuckups in a row can damge youre club forever ... blue print the pigscum