[jjamez]

A quick turn around from the weekends debacle sees Town welcome Preston to the John Smiths Stadium on Tuesday night under the floodlights. As has been said a few times before with Town, it gives us the chance to right the wrongs pretty quickly, but as has happened before many a time, nothing ever changes, its the same problems and same mistakes week in week out, year in year out. We make sloppy mistakes at the back, dont defend corners and set pieces well enough and never truly look like we know how to attack in open play, our chance creation percentages for the last however many years must be awful and in all fairness it shows, it was bad in the promotion season if we are being honest, we were just a lot fitter and more solid than our opponents, but now a lot of teams implement similar footballing theories so it is difficult to gain the upper hand in these cases.

Now I didn't go on saturday and have only seen brief 'highlights' rather than anything proper so i cant comment much on how we looked or any real individual performances, the only thing I will say is, what the f88k was Schofield doing? if he felt that it was too difficult to do anything with, as it was, put it out for a corner, yes we struggle defending but you've more chance than with that almighty cock up. This is just one game but Schofield made a mistake with his kicking in the Fleetwood friendly that I went to, it is becoming a common occurrence and something needs to happen.



Likewise with the result, it is one result, but it is one of many this year and how much longer can the club afford to be allowing it to happen? Carlos is a major factor here, but when he joined it was said he would get backed, now covid hasnt helped, but it was around before he joined so it is no excuse. The truth is he's been brought in to play a style of football, one we saw glimpses off before christmas last year and it was good to watch at times, but, the board have made another promise that they have failed to deliver on. They haven't given him the players needed for this style of football, they havent given him the players he would want to operate his style of football, I can't for one iota of a second see how players like Ward, Holmes, Sarr and Sanogo from last season fit into his philosophy, likewise now, i dont see how Pearson, Turton, Rhodes fit it either, instead we are seeing a mishmash of styles which fundementally results in us having no real identity. Now one could argue that it is on Coberan to adapt and in this sense I feel sorry for him, as i feel he is trying to do so, but is so out of his depth its getting nowhere near to working, he's a person whos experience as a head coach is of failure and at the moment I dont see it changing any time soon. I dont see him getting a tune out of these players, in fact I dont think some are actually playing for him, one of whom i have mentioned already is very much against Coberan and his coaching style, I shall say no more on that though other than it isnt his first time here... I dont see how he can be persisted with in the long run, especially when fans are back in the ground.

Now like i said, the blame could be laid at the door of Carlos, but it also must certainly be levelled at many others higher up the ranks. Dean Hoyle has leached the club for all its worth since relegation, even after saying he wouldnt claim the money back, if he had called in the debts upon promotion, no town fan would have blinked an eye, in fact they would have accepted it and been happy for him to do so. He's taken it back after signing off on terrible signings and terrible appointments, decisions he was at the forefront of making. We had a couple of director of footballs just in the Premier League era in the form of David Moss and Olaf Rebbe, neither given much time to bring anyone in, in fact its hard to tell who they were actually behind the signing off. In regards to signings, Hoyle signed off on numerous duds in that second season, diakhaby, mbenza, sobhi etc yet this is the money he is reclaiming, the money he provided to sign crud. We also had the departure of Wagner and then replacing him with a junior coach hoping for the third strike of lightening in three seasons with Wagner and Farke coming from BVB 2 prior to Siewert, it was a decision destined to fail from that moment we appointed him, would it have been different had we appointed him at the end of the season and gone into preseason with him as the new man, possibly, a number of players had fallen out with him over his style and demeanour during the back end of the season, that obviously wouldnt have happened had it come at the end of the season, so maybe we would have had our better players actually willing to give it a try and not upsetting the apple cart at every given opportunity. But who knows, we probably shouldnt have gone for him full stop.

Now lets move from Hoyle to Phil. From the start it has seemed like he has told lie upon lie and it puts him in a difficult place from the off. He claimed he had the funds to run the club, but the investment even prior to covid was lackluster, since then even more so, he claimed if players left there would be quality replacements to come in, we are still yet to replace billing and mooy, zanka for what he ended up being like was replaced by elphick and stearman, who have since been replaced by Pearson. So when he says players sold now will be replaced by similar quality players, I dont see it, in fact I see Scott High replacing O'brien, I just dont trust what Phil says. Sticking with players, we brought a spanish coach in and have since signed 2 spaniards to the squad, instead choosing to sign players the fans have more knowledge over than the coaches. He mentioned sexy signings from South America, theres been links but never any traction, does a couple of sales ie mbenza bacca and obrien change this? I'm not banking on it. I see it becoming very toxic towards Phil if things dont change quick, by October it could be a place he doesnt want to be on matchdays. There has been a lot of talk, a lot of big talk, fighting talk but when it has come to it he has been found wanting.

So from the top dog on the board to the lower members. Hard to say anything about the commercial director really, tbh he has secured a fair few sponsorship deals for the club mainly with the shirts, something that for a couple of season has been found wanting. The chief executive seems to be a puppet for the board and another big talker with little action and then we are looking at the director of football or whatever his role title is, Leigh Bromby. He did well as Academy director and should have stayed there, since he has become top man for the first team, the signings have lackluster, with a lot of them being players that have either been here before or known to Bromby, not many have been signed due to them being of the right quality and it shows, there seems to be a complete lack of organisation and communication between the departments about signings and Brombys lack of contacts in his black book also shows with the players that have been signed so far. Like with Phil, I dont trust him to sign the players required to replace or take us forward. I also dont trust the pair to replace the manager should it be needed, to the extent that I reckon it would be someone along the lines of Aidy Boothroyd who gets appointed, mainly because I feel that Bromby played under him at Watford.



Anyways, onto Tuesdays game. Preston come into the game on the back of two defeats, one on the opening day of the season at home to newly promoted Hull and another last weekend away at Reading. Now managed by Frankie McAvoy, the Scot was first team coach when Alex Neil was manager at Norwich and at Preston, when Neil was sacked last season McAvoy took the role of interim head coach winning five of his eight matches leading to being appoint head coach for this season, the first time he has had a head coach role.



On the opening weekend they welcomed Hull to Deepdale, they begun brightly with Emil Riis-Jakobsen scoring his first goal since December after just 8 minutes, however, Keane Lewis-Potter equalised ten minutes before the break, before the Tigers ripped into Preston in the second half. Goals from Richie Smallwood, Josh Magennis and Andy Cannon compounded Preston to a 4-1 defeat. They followed it up in the midweek with a 3-0 win away at Mansfield in the League Cup, Scott Sinclair scoring a brace with Jakobsen scoring the third. Next up was a trip to Reading, who have been struggle more than most this summer to sign players due to an ongoing embargo that has been placed on them by the EFL. Femi Azeez opened the scoring for the Royals before Daniel Johnson equalised from the spot, howeve parity didnt last long as John Swift scored the winner to put Preston at the foot of the table in the early stages of the season, but I dont think it will last for too long.

With the transfer window open both sides are able to strengthen and dont we need it, but I think we'll still be waiting a little while before see even a glimmer of that. As for Preston, Izzy Brown has joined from Chelsea on a free transfer, the former Town loanee has gone a long way off the boil since he played for us and looked like he had the potential to be a top player. Numerous of poor loans out since his time here at the likes of Luton and Sheffield Wednesday has seen his career stagnate, he has looked to go through the motions whilst out on loan, coupled with lack of form and a perceived lack of interest, although upon signing for Preston he claimed he still believed he had the ability to become an England international. He wont feature tomorrow having picked up a serious injury during preseason. Like Brown, fellow new signing Matt Olosunde also suffered relegation last season, going down with Rotherham. The American fullback came through the system at Manchester United, leaving to join Rotherham in 2019. He played 72 games in total for The Millers, scoring 1 and assisting 7 times. He's yet to feature for Preston having picked up a slight knock before the start of the season, Tuesday could come too soon for him. Scottish defender Liam Lindsay turned his loan move into a permanent switch. The centre half joined after Preston sold Ben Davies to Liverpool and played 13 games last season and has played both league games so far this season. Danish goalkeeper Daniel Iversen rejoined on loan from Leicester City again after playing the last campaign at Deepdale. He played 23 league games last season for Preston and has featured in every game this season having come on early against Hull to replace the injured Declan Rudd. Sepp Van Den Berg has also extended his loan at Deepdale from Liverpool for the season. The final player through the door was Jamie Thomas who joins from Bamber Bridge having impressed on trial during the summer.

As for departing the club, Louis Moult has dropped to league one to join Burton Albion, Billy Bodin has also gone to league one to join Oxford United, whilst Jayden Stockley, known to Town fans for the challenge on Tommy Elphick the other year has joined Charlton. Also leaving the club Josh Ginnelly has moved to Hearts, Graham Burke has moved to Shamrock Rovers whilst Paul Gallagher has retired and has moved onto the coaching team at Preston.



Manager Talk

Carlos

"All the players from Saturday are still available. Lewis O'Brien, Lee Nicholls and Danel Sinani will all be available too. Pipa is still recovering from his injury. Rolando Aarons played with the B Team on Saturday and played well. We will continue to manage his minutes."

"Fulham's first goal affected the confidence in the team. Ryan was trying to avoid a corner and it was a mistake. I think that goal placed some doubts and helped them with their pressing. We tried to take more risks. We wanted to see if we could get one goal to get us in the game. When you take these risks there are less players in the defence. For me, the first goal was a clear accident, it was not easy."

"Every defeat can do two things - increase your ambitions, or increase your doubts. It's increased our ambitions. We're very lucky to have a game so soon after. Having a win increases everyone's confidence, we want that first win."

"Josh Ruffels hasn't started training back yet, he had stronger symptoms, so he needs a slightly longer recovery. Harry Toffolo is back training with the team today, but he needs longer to follow the protocols before he can be selected."

"We needed to be more aggressive with our press. Our work now is to make our performance better so that it represents us and our fans better. It's important that we react to Saturday, and that we show our reaction."

"We didn't compete against Fulham as well as we should have. We're a very competitive squad and we didn't hit the level that we should be at. That needs to change for Preston, we need to refocus."



Frankie

“Declan Rudd is ready, hopefully Ched Evans will be available tomorrow night and Tom Bayliss is back in as well. Paul Huntington isnot ready at the moment, he will probably be a good few weeks yet.”

“They are always tough games against Huddersfield, they make it difficult for you and we know that. We will give them the respect they are due but at the same time we will go there to win.”

“These players have done well for us in the past. At this stage we have got to back them and try and give them as much support as we can and hopefully they can go out and perform to get the win on Tuesday night.”

“We haven’t done well enough in these two games, we need to get back to what we did in those last eight games last season, get back to keeping cleansheets and trying to create chances at the other end to get back to winning ways.”

In terms of head to head the two sides have an equal record, with both winning 36 times, with 23 draws, one of those Preston wins being the 1922 FA Cup final, where they won 1-0. The first meeting between the two sides was back in 1912 when snoots was just out of his nappies      and the two sides played out a 1-1 draw. A lot of Towns wins came in the early meetings with Preston having the upper hand over Town of late. They did the double over us last season winning 3-0 at Preston and 2-1 at Town, with Town having taken an early lead through Fraizer Campbell, whilst the season before they won at Deepdale 3-1 and played out a dour 0-0 at the John Smiths. In the promotion season, Town ran out 3-2 winners at home thanks to a late Collin Quaner goal as he poached in the rebound after Aaron Mooy missed his spot kick, the game was marred by a serious injury picked up by former Town boy Tom Clarke. Earlier that season Preston won 3-1 with Clarke bagging a goal there as they bullied us all over the pitch.



There has been a few old boys that have played for both mentioned already in the forms of Tom Clarke and Izzy Brown, but other names to have played for both teams include...

1) Striker who joined Town on loan from Preston before turning the move permanent. He featured 25 times for Preston scoring 5 times, at Town he played 111 times scoring 48 before being moved on to Swansea much to the dismay of fans. He didnt have a good time at Swansea and bounced around a bit after that before retiring in 2018

2) Came to Town from Scotland and had a three year stay here before being released and moving to Deepdale. He was at Preston for 5 years but suffered a serious injury whilst he was there. He had a few seasons in the lower football leagues before a short spell in non league. He had a spell playing out in India and is now back playing in Wales alongside a former Town teammate.

3) Striker who had a season long loan at Town whilst he was a Premier League player. Came through the non league system and made his way to Yorkshire. His first stay in Yorkshire was impressive as he made a mark at Old Trafford. He moved to Mersyside for a season before moving to the midlands. He only spent a year at Town but scored some crucial goals. Injuries hampered him in the latter stages of his career but it didnt stop him scoring 21 in 60 for Preston.

4) Another Lancastrian, he made his name originally a bit further north. During his first loan move out he scored and was sent off against Town and ended up turning that loan into a full time switch. He came further south and joined Nottingham Forest where he found goals and consistent game time hard to come by. He left Forest and went to Watford where he struggled even more so for form and goals leading him to move to Preston. At Preston he played 129 times and scored 49 times before moving around a fair bit. He is now playing out in Cyrpus. Oh his time at Town was a goalless loan spell where he spent most of it sat down in front of defenders.

5) A defender who had two differing spells at Town. He began his career on the wrong side of the Pennines before kickstarting his career at Halifax. He had a couple of seasons at Halifax before moving back to Lancashire. A six year stay in Lancashire followed before he moved to Huddersfield and became a firm fans favourite. He left after 2 years to move to Preston where he would stay for 5 years and play over 180 games before moving back to Yorkshire to finish his career. Since retirement he has had a failed attempt at management at a club in disarray and can now be found as an assistant manager to someone he played alongside for many season.

6) Never played for either side but did manage both sides achieving promotion with both sides, although his time with Town isn't overly considered a success all being told. His time at Preston however is considered far more of a success having fought off relegation, got promoted and made them a solid Championship side. He questionably left to join a relegated Premier League side, probably for the Netflix fame. It didnt work out and he ended up finding himself dropping down the leagues to the likes of Bradford and Blackpool. He had a short spell as caretaker manager at Kendall Town before being appointed at Fleetwood... this is easy this one!

7) Midfielder who joined Town from Oldham but never got a real run of games going as Peter Jackson froze him out of the team. A new manager came and he soon found himself out on loan at Preston. He only played 4 games for Preston and returned to Town and another manager decided to loan him out to Port Vale to play under one of his former managers. He only played 4 games there and was released by Town and joined Hull. He had a year there before moving to Plymouth and then back north to Tranmere and Macclesfield where he would retire.

8) Defender who started his career at Oldham and played 18 games there before moving on to Preston. Whilst at Preston he had a brief loan spell at Town where he somehow played 21 games despite being a calamity. Upon leaving Preston he moved to Rochdale before drifting into non league at Chesterfield. He worked his way back into the football league with Plymouth and Bristol Rovers. He has since retired and become an agent as well as owning a sports psychotherapy consultancy.

9) Striker who joined Town from Leeds after failing to settle at Elland Road. His time at Town was more fruitful as he scored 16 goals in his three year stay before moving on to Preston for a season. He had spells at Oldham and Macclesfield as well as Brentford, but he is probably best known for his time at Town.

10) A striker with an extensive playing career. He had a brief loan spell at Town during the league one days which didnt amount to much. His time at Preston was far more memorable with 28 goals in 100 appearances. Despite his time at Forest Green being his best in terms of goals to game, its his times at Hull, Preston and Cardiff that he is remembered for.

The Preston anagrams

1) Why hit ill steel

2) Halls by link

3) Posh mens a flinty

4) Elk lobby

5) An ally elk

[Lord Snooty]

Nice one, jjamez.

First one's Pawel Abbott.

[themaclad]

4 Garner
10 Parkin

[Lord Snooty]

No 3. Jermaine Beckford

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4. Joe Garner

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6. Larry Grayson

[Lord Snooty]

Anagram 2 - Bill Shankly

[WakeyTerrier]

Tonight could be toxic.

A certain poster on DATM has certainly thrown the cat amongst the pigeons over the ownership/deal to to buy the club and the mess it has left us in.

[Lord Snooty]

Lose tonight and the atmosphere will be worse than that Lincoln league cup match.

[theo_luddite]

Good one jjamez

Hopefully the team will live up to the same high standard tonight. I won't hold my breath.

[Lord Snooty]

Better starting XI. High and O'Brien in for Holmes and Vallejo.
Nicholls in for Shaggy.

[theo_luddite]

If it helps

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Pearson ill just before kickoff. Lees starts.