Matchday Thread Preston North End v Rotherham United - 16/08/22 - KO:19:45 - Championship
As I said last night the selection was too defensive from the start though it might have looked very different if Johnson or Parrott had stuck away the chances they got in the first half. But by half-time it was obvious a change was needed and hopefully RL will admit even if only to himself that the change he made in bringing Riis on 20 minutes into the second half was 20 minutes too late. But before last night I would have said that a win then would have taken a bit of the pressure off this coming week-end and would have meant that a draw on Saturday getting us four points from the two matches would be an OK result. Well we can still get those points and it would of course be very much the PNE way to do so in what on paper at least looks the more difficult way to do so. So we go into Saturday with record setting sequence of clean sheets and a failure to score so far at home. Will at least one of those be ended? Might we even go into the match with a new striker? But whatever we need to go into it with two strikers upfront.
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I have just spent a bit of spare time going through the record books, but mine only gp up to the end of the 2004/05 season. From the start of the football league in the 1888/89 season up until the 4004/05 season we had 81 different goal keepers (on including the break for WW1 & WW2 where different goalies were used depending on who was free and stationed close by).
During this period only 19 of them kept a clean sheet in their first league game, of which 7 went on to keep 2 clean sheets, of which 2 kept 3 clean sheets (one being David Lucas in the 1995/96 season) and one keeping 4 clean sheets in their first 4 league games - Martin Hodge in the 1981/82 season.
totally disagree...... we often had more player in their half and in their box than we have had for years......especially 2nd half before the subs.
I agree with the point about fitness. Looks like RL has got the whole team working on fitness preseason. I was impressed at Luton that the whole team were able to run for 90 mins in 34 degree heat. I got a sweat on just getting up from my seat.
We sometimes take fitness for granted but I remember in years gone by certain players regularly cramping up towards the end of games.
Fair enough but we patently lacked the cuttting edge to make the most of the situation. Starting a home match against a team who just a few months ago were in the division below us with just one striker was just too negative. But we march on and let's see if we can score at home on Saturday - in the meantime I'm off to creosote a garden fence in Ipswich.
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I follow Com said he was lucky it was not a red last night
We won the FA Cup without having a goal scored against us, anyone beaten that one yet?
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It doesn't matter how many players you have in the opposition box if you don't put the ball in the back of the net. I wonder what the stats for players in the Swindon box were at Wembley in 2015, when we scored 4 goals without reply with 32% possession?
Yes, in my opinion!
Yes, slid through him and connected hard with his knee. It was a dangerous tackle and the player wasn't in control of the slide.
Another ref would have sent him off. The one we had yesterday was pretty lenient, unfortunately for us.
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Browne worst player on the pitch mind playing him in the role he was in yesterday was a joke
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Well Swindon didn’t have about 9/10 players camped in the penalty area every time we tried to attack. In fact Swindon’s performance in that final is pretty shambolic compared to Rotherham’s last night.
We had players in the box and were creating chances from it. Had we not I would have been more concerned. I’m going to put it out there - that 2nd half onslaught is the best defensive display I’ve seen from an opposing team will in years. They defended for their lives.
They did defend very well in the second half in particular. They also had the rub of the green with deflections and ricochets but you need that fortune when defending the level of intense pressure we exerted. That said at least one of the clear cut chances we had before the break (Johnson and Parrott) should have been buried.
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Rotherham didn't have 9/10 players in the penalty area when Johnson and Parrot missed gilt-edged chances. If one of those had gone in, it would have been a different game. We missed chances against Wigan and Hull as well - and that is concerning.
Totally agree about Rotherham - a very hard working, well organised outfit and a proper football club - hopefully they stay up this time. Their time-wasting was annoying but I don't blame them for that - it's up to the referee to clamp down on it and last night's was particularly weak.
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Couldnt really give a toss about the no of clean sheets since 19 fish an chips if we cant score at the other end.Fairly obvious to me at least that Browne and Johnson are stealing starting shirts.
Time to give Woodburn and Mccann proper starting rolls.Parrot is good but fades after 60 mins.Billy Bullshitter has got to stop favouring his illigitemate offspring and be much more astute in his sub timings.
Time to give Woodburn and Mccann proper starting rolls.Parrot is good but fades after 60 mins.Billy Bullshitter has got to stop favouring his illigitemate offspring and be much more astute in his sub timings.
Don't worry about it Walmer 😎