[themaclad]

Tractors away the utter joy of an 8 am start from Deepdale, M6 and the A14 await, swollen ankles and a saggy arse by the time I eventually get home somewhere near midnight tomorrow. Only the second ever visit to the ground, did like the 1970's style catering section in the away side.
Given our momentary lapse of greatness with no victories in six and three straight defeats, we face another side for who form has dipped although they have actually won a game since September. They won at Burton a couple of weeks ago however like us have lost their last two homes games since stuffing the hapless Blunderland on 26/9/2017 which is the date we last won.
Big Mick is a favourite of mine a blunt Yorkshireman who tells it how it is, his team ply in the same way no frills but just an honest bunch of players who give their all. Amongst the men in blue tomorrow may be one Joe Garner slightly associated with us, scored a few, got booked and sent off a few times and had thousands of head injuries which caused him to collapse to the floor on more than one occasion. Apparently does not know whether he will celebrate if he scores tomorrow, simple answe to his predicament is to ensure he does not score but with our defence and lack of resources at the moment may prove a tad more difficult. Tractors have invested a bit more in Garner and Waghorn from North of the border, they are a bit in and out at the moment but not an easy game before the International snore fest
The only certain players likely to start tomorrow are Fisher, Boyle, Huntington and O'Connor as they are the only four fit defenders we have big chance to impress for Boyle and O'Connor personal view time to rest Maguire looks knackered to me.

Ipswich Town vs Preston North End Match Preview



Preston North End make the long trek to Suffolk, looking to go into the latest international break on the back of three points at Ipswich Town.

Mick McCarthy’s men sit one place below the tenth-place Lilywhites, on the same number of points, with both sides looking to bounce back from midweek reversals, against Cardiff City and Aston Villa respectively.

For Alex Neil it is a case of counting heads after the loss of yet another two defenders in the clash with Steve Bruce’s Villans in front of the Sky cameras on Wednesday night – Calum Woods and Josh Earl joining the extensive defensive casualty list.

For the Portman Road outfit, it will be a first chance for Joe Garner to line-up against his boyhood club since his summer 2016 departure and is will get a warm reception from the travelling North End faithful.

Stat Attack: Ipswich Town



We make the long journey to Suffolk for a league game for only the 16th time since our first trip to Portman Road in 1964.

Four goals in front at half-time was improved even further when Brian Godfrey completed his hat-trick in the 58th minute and Joe Broadfoot’s late goal was mere consolation as we returned the victors by 5-1.

However, it was to be 41 years and seven matches before we next managed to score in Ipswich. Once again we got off to a flyer, through a David Nugent double and a David Jones strike in the first half, before Patrick Agyemang added the gloss to a 4-0 win.
In between, we had a suffered five defeats and a goalless draw, so it is fair to say we have found wins hard to come by in this fixture, with only four so far. A further three draws shows a return from almost half the matches, so our record is not that bad overall.

Of those players to have appeared for both clubs, strikers are well represented with David Healy, Jon Macken, Ricardo Fuller, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and David Johnson amongst their numbers. Others include Tommy Miller, Sean St. Ledger and Richard Chaplow, so plenty of connections there.

On This Date
This has not been an auspicious date as far as away league games are concerned, with only two previous wins in our 12 games to date. These came at Lincoln in 1981 and Bristol Rovers in 1987.

Neil Mellor celebrates his 35th birthday on Saturday, whilst former loanee David Jones is 33.

Full back John McMahon played the last of his 292 games for North End on 4th November in 1978, in a 3-1 defeat at West Ham United.

Mancunian John came through the youth ranks to make his debut on 6th October 1970 in a League Cup tie with West Bromwich Albion, during our third division championship winning campaign. Prior to that match, he had made four appearances on loan at Southend and after 11 games in 1970/71, he took over as our regular right back from stalwart George Ross during the following season. His consistency is marked by the fact that only one of his games for North End was from the bench. He later played for Crewe, Wigan and Tranmere, making just short of 500 career appearances.

Last Five Games At Portman Road
Ipswich Town 1 (Ward) Preston North End 0, 27th August 2016
Ipswich Town 1 (Murphy) Preston North End 1 (Johnson), 16th January 2016
Ipswich Town 1 (McGoldrick) Preston North End 1 (Davies), 4th January 2014
Ipswich Town 2 (Scotland, Norris) Preston North End 1 (Coutts), 30th April 2011
Ipswich Town 1 (Walters) Preston North End 1 (Wallace), 29th August 2009


Ref Watch: Ipswich Town

On Saturday the match official is one of the most familiar faces in terms of referees for North End fans.

Not only did he take charge of five of our games last season, but he also refereed the Play-Off Final win at Wembley in 2015 and our last encounter with local rivals Blackpool – when Tom Clarke wrote his name in PNE folklore – it is of course Andy Madley.

Last season he was the referee away at Queens Park Rangers, in both games we played at St James’ Park, Newcastle, the away game at Aston Villa in January and the 5-0 home thrashing of Bristol City in April.

He also had the whistle for three PNE games in 2014/15, including the win at Wembley, having been the referee in the first league win of the season, the 4-0 triumph at Scunthorpe United back in August of 2014 and then the live TV game against Fleetwood Town at Highbury in March 2015.

Mr Madley, as mentioned, was also in charge of our now memorable League Cup win over Blackpool in 2013/14 and then at Port Vale when North End won 2-0 with ten men.

This year he has so far officiated 15 games, issuing 39 cautions, and this is his second game in the middle for both Ipswich and the Lilywhites, having been in charge of our 1-0 home win over Reading and the Tractor Boys’ 2-0 victory over Bolton Wanderers at Portman Road.

He will be assisted on Saturday by Neil Davies and Nigel Lugg and the fourth official will be Darren Blunden.

[themaclad]

Ipswich Town 3 (Waghorn, McGoldrick,Celina) Preston North End 0

Ipswich: Bialowski, Spence, Chambers, Webster, Jonas, Skuse (Bru 31), Connolly (Kenlock 66), Waghorn (Nydam 77), McGoldrick, Celina, Garner. Subs (not used): Iorfa, Ward, Sears, Gerken.
PNE: Maxwell, Fisher (Vermijl 37), Huntington, Boyle, O'Connor, Welsh (Gallagher 70), Barkhuizen, Pearson, Browne, Johnson (Harrop 63), Hugill. Subs (not used): Horgan, Mavididi, Robinson, Hudson.
Referee: Andrew Madley (West Yorkshire) Attendance: 14,390 (435 PNE)

The key to this game was whoever scored first would win the game and so it proved has to be said North End were probably the better side until Town scored. We had had the only chances and seemed just to be more positive than the home side. Pearson should have done better when well placed, scuffed his shot when well placed. Chances though were few and far between in a dire first half were the whistle was blown on a regular basis and the flow of the game was disrupted by a stream of injuries, which led to Cole of Town and Fisher of North End being replaced.
There was just the first inkling of unrest with the home faithful just before Town scored from a Waghorn free kick. Firstly didn't think it was a foul certainly not a yellow card for Welsh. As for the goal, wall lined up to protect left side of goal, Maxwell looking after right side of goal. Ball goes to the right easy for Maxwell, well it would have been if he had not gone left. Browne and Welsh less than impressed with the keeper and a heated debate took place on the edge of the box afterwards. Nearly level on the stroke of half time when Johnson's curling effort clipped the top of the bar and that was about as close as we would get for the remainder of the match.
Within four minutes of the restart it was two, some woeful defending on the edge of the ball, cross to the far side of the box McGoldrick easily out jumped Vermijl who seem to have his feet buried into the ground, should have done better. Good powerful header though. Folding pack of cards time, O'Connor cleared off the line and Knudsen fired narrowly over the top, but wasn't long before number three arrived Cellina had the freedom of half of Portman Road to advance down the right hand side and beat Maxwell at his near post, maybe the keeper should havev done better but the shot went in like a rocket. Game well and truly over Town sat back for the remainder of the match and with North End's pedestrian build up were rarely troubled.
Not a great day however it did emphaise the lack of depth's in the squad.
Finally one irrelevant point on the A14 to and from Ipswich there are 110 road junctions, that is all.

Ipswich manager Mick McCarthy:

"It was what was required. There are all sorts of different ways to win a football match.

"I have been in the Championship long enough to know that there's a team coming to play against us that's going to be pretty tough and resolute.

"It wasn't going to be pretty - the one bit of quality was the move before the goal.

"The second half we played well and it always looks better when you score three goals."

Preston boss Alex Neil:

"The first half was scrappy. There was a five-to-10-minute spell where we put four or five good crosses into the box and looked threatening.

"From that point it was really disappointing to go a goal down.

"We don't need to sit here and feel sorry for ourselves but our last two performances have been very disappointing.

"We have a smallish squad and now have nine players missing through injury, and we are being stretched to the limit."

[St Charles Owl]

The wheels seem to have dropped off the wagon a bit in recent games for you guys, something to worry about or just a temporary dip in form?

[themaclad]

Stacks of injuries all at the back saying that though we've let in some poor goals, lack experience played Villa on Wednesday had no one over the age of 27 in the side also discipline is not great, Hugill will be the fourth player to be suspended plus two others one booking away from a ban. Had some naff refs as well. Lack of depth in squad is the biggest problem

[St Charles Owl]

Lack of depth is a problem for so many teams in the Championship!! We are without some key players and we have struggled, teams just can’t carry huge squads, so a few injuries really start to hurt. I haven’t looked but I would be the promoted teams tend to use the least players or at least spread out their injuries and suspensions.

[themaclad]

Aye you need stability especially at the back we have had 10 different sets of back four in 16 games, had several changes in last three games and losing two before half time against Villa didn't help but such is life, crap happens