[themaclad]

West Bromwich Albion 3 Mowatt pen, Bartley, Furlong Preston North End 0

West Brom line-up: Palmer; Furlong, Bartley, Kipré, Townsend; Yokuşlu (M’Vila, 76), Mowatt; Fellows (Wallace, 68), Diangana (Phillips, 85), Johnston (Swift, 76); Thomas-Asante (Maja, 85). Subs not used: Griffiths, Ajayi, Chalobah, Reach.

PNE line-up: Woodman; Storey, Lindsay, Hughes (Best, 84); Browne, Whatmough, Holmes (Seary, 72), Millar; Frøkjær (Stewart, 72); Keane (Evans, 84), Riis (Osmajić, 29). Subs not used: Cornell, Brady, T.Mawene, N.Mawene.

Attendance: TBC (1,266 PNE fans).

Referee: Mr S Martin.

As predicatable as day follows night in the end we surrended, five straight defeats, and no goals a truly wonderful way to end the season. Albion full value for their victory although in fairness to the hapless ones in yellow we did actually play well enough in the first although a save by Woodman and an awful miss by Thomas-Asante he missed another sitter in the second half.
Another early start the evr lovely M6 and there two hours before kick, wandered down to the cricket ground and back, one lap round the ground, steps target achieved and in we go. To be fair to fantastic probably the strongest side we could put out.
Both sides had early periods of pressure with Millar being our go to man, as per usual final pass was dire and we soon came under pressure, Albion should have been ahead as already mentioned but there was a certain amount of tension in the air given Albion's fate rested with other games namely Hull. Soon became apparent Hull were losingand the edge appeared to go from the game. Into injury time harsh looking free kick given to the home siide in the resulting play, Albion player down and the man with two brains instantly pointed to the spot.
Mowatt sent Woodman the wrong way Albion in front at the break and in the play offs



Soon became apparent in the second period the goal had killed us stone dead and we gave a passable impression of not giving a toss, Albion second was an error by Woodman came for a long throw in didn't get it and in the ensuing panic Bartley scored. The third was even worse defender Diangana down the left Whatmough sort of tried to tackle him in the area faied to and the winger found Furlong who bagged easily.
Some of the away support headed for the exit didn't miss much Albion probably should have scored more didn't and the man with two brains blew the whistle to end a truly dire end to tyhe season.
Browne and Evans gave their shirts to two supporters clapped the support disappeared from the pitch neither likely to play for us again.

West Brom head coach Carlos Corberan said:

“The first target, to reach the play-offs, is done, and now we will work towards the next one. I’m happy to have the possibility to do it with this group of players. They deserve, over the season, the position we’ve achieved today.

“The play-offs give you the step that allow you to fight for promotion. Unfortunately last year we couldn’t achieve it, but this year we have.

“We know we are going to have a massively strong test, because Southampton are a team that were in the Premier League last year and who deserve their position too.

“We know how difficult the new target, which is Wembley, will be to achieve, but we are going to make our best [effort].”

Preston manager Ryan Lowe said:

“We were nowhere near the level. It’s been disappointing for everyone involved, the fans and hierarchy, because we wanted to finish the season on a high.

“It’s my job to find solutions and be better next season. The recruitment has already started, to find more leaders, more quality for when we have a burst of injuries as we’ve had.

“I didn’t think my team would have given in like it looks like they have - that’s disappointing. We have to make up that gap.

“But I believe in my ability, my staff’s ability, the players we’ve got at our disposal now and I think we can achieve some great things and keep pushing on.”

Roughly translated as I havn't got a clue what to do