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It all led to Preston having a little unbeaten run around the Christmas and New Year period that apart from getting them into the fourth round of the FA Cup with a replay win at Reading it also saw them claim a place in the top six and a play off place.
They were there for just a week and lost their place to Wigan who went to Deepdale and hit them for four and have now dropped to 12th after a series of generally poor results that also saw them Trundled out of the FA Cup at the Vetch Field.
They have been somewhat unfortunate though and manager Craig Brown, by his own admission not one to whinge, has complained about bad refereeing decisions costing his side in every game that hasn’t been won.
Brown hasn’t been as busy as Stan in the transfer market in the last few weeks since we met but he has brought in his first ever loan player this week by signing Bolton’s midfielder Jeff Smith on loan.
Smith played a couple of FA Cup games for Bolton this season as Sam Allardyce decided to get his club knocked out whilst his two league appearances have come for Scunthorpe and Rochdale in previous loan spells.
Another player to have arrived has now left. They signed former Scotland international Craig Burley, the player whose name I have real difficulty in spelling without a letter N in the middle, in January. Burley was caught up in all the mess at Derby and then took the wrong option of signing for Dundee.
Only just over a week ago, with his month’s contract nearing an end, Brown said he was trying to get him to sign a longer term deal but in the end they parted company.
We’ve been constantly bumping into Preston fans in recent weeks as we enjoyed (!!!!) or series of visits to Millwall, they were on their way to Watford and then Ipswich and both were lost.
That Ipswich defeat game them a run of three consecutive defeats but they brought that to an end with another win over Reading at Deepdale on Tuesday night when David Healy scored a late goal, his second of the match, to secure the points in a 2-1 win.
Was Brown delighted at the win, probably but he was more concerned in complaining at yet another decision. At 1-0 up Preston thought they might have scored again but the ball was adjudged not to have crossed the line. The Weary Whinger apparently had a perfect view of this from the half way line technical area and could see it was in.
Reading then went on to equalise eight minutes from time before Healy’s late winner kept Preston in the top half of the league.
The lined up against Reading: Andy Lonergan, Graham Alexander, Chris Lucketti, Michael Jackson (Tyrone Mears 9), Claude Davis (Eddie Lewis 62), Rob Edwards, David Healy, Paul McKenna, Michael Keane, Ricardo Fuller, Richard Cresswell. Subs not used: David Lucas, Alan McCormack, Simon Lynch.
It is noticeable that neither Glen Little nor Robbie Blake were in the Preston team, that despite many people seeming able to confirm that they were all set to sign for Preston about a month ago.
It is another big game for the Clarets as we continue to push ourselves as far away from the bottom three as possible and points tomorrow would take us into the forties and ever closer to that safety position.
Click HERE to see all Preston’s results this season.
Past Results in the last 20 years
Season | Div | Ven | Result | Att | Scorers |
a | |||||
1983/84 | 3 | h | 2-1 | 8,095 | Reeves Hamilton |
a | 2-4 | 8,813 | Donachie Tueart | ||
1984/85 | 3 | a | 3-3 | 4,995 | Biggins(2) Whatmore |
h | 2-0 | 4,768 | Scott Biggins | ||
1985/86 | 4 | a | 0-1 | 5,585 | |
a | 1-1 | 3,835 | Deakin | ||
1986/87 | 4 | h | 1-4 | 5,974 | James(pen) |
a | 1-2 | 10,716 | Parker | ||
1992/93 | 2 | a | 0-2 | 7,209 | |
h | 2-0 | 12,648 | Heath(2) | ||
1993/94 | LC | a | 2-1 | Davis Eyres | |
h | 4-1 | Deary Eyres Francis Russell | |||
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 | ||
1998/99 | 2 | a | 1-4 | 15,888 | Eastwood |
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 | I Moore |
h | 3-0 | 16,591 | I 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) |
Click HERE
to see more results against Preston right back to our first ever game in the Football League.