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Almost like Bournemouth again
Stock was in the midfield for Bournemouth in that cup tie last season in a 4-4-2 formation alongside Wade Elliott, John Spicer and Garreth O’Connor who will all be in the Clarets dressing room tomorrow afternoon.
Stock is not the only new signing at Deepdale recently, a week earlier Davies swooped to sign 20 year-old midfielder Simon Whaley from Bury. Whaley also made his debut in the game against Millwall, which North End won 2-0, coming on as a substitute for Stock with thirteen minutes to go.
They are the only new signings at Deepdale since the clubs last met earlier in the season but Davies is suggesting that there could be a new forward in the squad by the time they reach Burnley with Southampton’s Brett Ormerod the favourite.
Alongside that there has been transfer activity out of the club with Dickson Etuhu joining Norwich for £450,000 at the beginning of the month after initially joining the Norfolk club early in November. Etuhu played his last loan game against Preston, yes they incredibly gave him permission to play, and he broke Adam Nowland’s leg during that game.
Preston will come to Burnley with the second longest unbeaten run in the division. They have not lost since a 3-0 defeat at Luton on the last Saturday in September and the unbeaten run is now seventeen league games.
Those games have brought them a total of 31 points from seven wins and ten draws, during the same period the Clarets have actually won two more league games but we are two points behind that total from one more game.
The run has perked up recently and they have won their last three games and from a lowly position of 16th during October they are now in the bottom play off place with five points more than the Clarets with one game in hand on us.
A win is vital for the Clarets tomorrow, we are already out of any race for automatic promotion but we are also now ten points behind the second play off place which suggests we are in a fight now for only two play off places unless we can go on a good run.
Team News
Preston won’t be at full strength but there are no new injuries in the Deepdale camp for Billy Davies to worry about. Andy Lonergan, Andy Smith, Adam Nowland and Michael Brown are all long term casualties whilst two other players, Brian O’Neil and Matt Hill, are still both a couple of weeks away from being fit.
Davies says his team have worked well for what will be a tough game and he admitted that Burnley have a lot of good players besides Ade Akinbiyi and it will be a difficult game.
He’s likely to name the same side that beat Millwall last week which was: Carlo Nash, Graham Alexander, Youl Mawene, Claude Davis, Tyrone Mears, Chris Sedgwick, Paul McKenna, Brian Stock, Callum Davidson, David Nugent, Patrick Agyemang. Subs: Chris Lucketti, Lewis Neal, Simon Whaley, Dave Hibbert, Danny Dichio.
There is certain to be one change in the Burnley side with Ade Akinbiyi ruled out with a one match ban following his fifth yellow card of the season last week at Cardiff. The decision was harsh and so he will have to sit out this game, the first game he’s missed since making his first Burnley start at Sheffield United last season.
Almost certainly it will be Gifton Noel-Williams who replaces Ade in what I expect will be a 4-5-1 system. Steve Cotterill could look at bringing back either Graham Branch or John Spicer or both but I suspect he might otherwise start with the team that was badly beaten just a week ago at Ninian Park.
If so we will line up: Brian Jensen, Frank Sinclair, Wayne Thomas, John McGreal, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, James O’Connor, Micah Hyde, Chris McCann, Garreth O’Connor, Gifton Noel-Williams. Subs: Michael Duff, Duane Courtney, Danny Karbassiyoon, John Spicer, Graham Branch.
Last Time
It was Robbie Blake’s day, his last home game for the Clarets and he scored both goals as we went on to win the game 2-0. There’s more of this and other recent home games against Preston in our look back Preston always seems to come in a tough week covering all the home games against them since we won promotion.
The teams in that game last season were,
Burnley: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Gary Cahill, Frank Sinclair, Mo Camara, Lee Roche, James O’Connor, Tony Grant (Jean-Louis Valois 78), Micah Hyde, Ian Moore, Robbie Blake. Subs not used: Paul Scott, Joel Pilkington, Amadou Sanokho, Matt O’Neill.
Preston: Gavin Ward, Youl Mawene, Claude Davis, Chris Lucketti, Callum Davidson, Dickson Etuhu, Paul McKenna, Brian O’Neil (Omar Daly 89), Eddie Lewis, Richard Cresswell, Patrick Agyemang. Subs not used: Chris Neal, Graham Alexander, Marlon Broomes, Simon Lynch.
Previous 20 Seasons | |||||
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
1985/86 | 4 | a | 0-1 | 5,585 | . |
| . | . | h | 1-1 | 3,835 | Deakin |
1986/87 | 4 | h | 1-4 | 5,974 | James(pen) |
| . | . | a | 1-2 | 10,716 | Parker |
1987/88 | SV | h | 0-0 | 15,680 | . |
| . | . | a | 3-1aet | 17,592 | Oghani Hoskin Comstive |
1989/90 | LD | a | 0-3 | 5,241 | . |
1990/91 | LD | a | 1-6 | 12,016 | Bray |
1992/93 | 2 | a | 0-2 | 7,209 | . |
| . | . | h | 2-0 | 12,648 | Heath(2) |
1993/94 | LC | a | 2-1 | 6,283 | Davis Eyres |
. | . | h | 4-1 | 9,346 | Deary Eyres Francis Russell |
. | AG | a | 1-2 | 4,485 | Eyres |
1996/97 | 2 | a | 1-1 | 12,652 | Nogan |
| . | . | h | 1-2 | 16,186 | Barnes |
1997/98 | 2 | h | 1-1 | 13,809 | Cooke |
. | . | a | 3-2 | 12,263 | Payton Cooke N Moore |
. | AW | h | 1-0 | 10,079 | Payton |
1998/99 | 2 | a | 1-4 | 15,888 | Eastwood |
| . | AW | h | 0-1 | 3,366 | . |
| . | . | h | 0-1 | 11,561 | . |
1999/2000 | 2 | a | 0-0 | 13,708 | . |
| . | . | h | 0-3 | 22,310 | . |
2000/01 | 1 | a | 1-2 | 17,355 | Moore |
| . | . | h | 3-0 | 16,591 | Moore Ball Little |
2001/02 | 1 | a | 3-2 | 20,370 | Gnohere(2) Little |
| . | . | h | 2-1 | 18,388 | I Moore Johnson |
2002/03 | 1 | a | 1-3 | 16,046 | Taylor |
| . | . | h | 2-0 | 12,245 | Blake Papadopoulos |
2003/04 | 1 | a | 3-5 | 18,802 | I Moore Gnohere Blake(pen) |
| . | . | h | 1-1 | 15,837 | Blake |
2004/05 | C | h | 2-0 | 15,318 | Blake(2) |
| . | . | a | 0-1 | 18,202 | . |
2005/06 | C | a | 0-0 | 17,139 | . |
Click HERE
to see all our results against Preston, and our first league meeting was our very first Football League game.