Caught out by rivals fine start
BLUE-EYED BOY’S BLACKBURN VIEW
PAINFUL defeats stay in the record books forever with no mention of hard luck stories, injustices or tales of what might have been which affected the outcome.
I’ve no real idea now, and I was there, whether the 4-1 defeat at Deepdale in August 1978 flattered Preston or hung on a couple of contentious decisions.
And so it will remain the case with last Saturday’s humbling. Posterity will tell us that PNE flew out of the blocks to embarrass a leaden-footed Rovers defence and that they finished the afternoon at a rampant canter.
No-one, certainly not of a Lilywhite persuasion, will ever recall that around the 75th minute two erroneous decisions effectively settled the issue.
First Lewis Moult, a journeyman striker who’s spent most of his career lolloping about in the Conference and the lower reaches of the Scottish Premiership, turned a ricochet in from point-blank range having been stood palpably offside as the initial shot was struck. 3-1.
Then Ben Brereton, a 19-year-old burdened by a huge fee and an altogether odd sequence of events which led to his arrival at Ewood, finally manouevred himself into position to fire home a perfectly legitimate goal only to find that the referee’s assistant at the other end was equally unable to keep up with play. Still 3-1 then when it could have been 2-2 and an altogether different complexion on the final 20 minutes to be played.
In truth, Rovers didn’t really deserve anything. Poor performances all over the field and a manager for once comprehensively tactically outsmarted by his opposite number to the extent that even after the game Tony Mowbray for once struggled to find a coherent sentence to mitigate what we had all just seen meant that the home side’s eager forwards were able to add the flourish of a fourth, strangely echoing that result of 40 years ago in the week that the Rovers manager on that occasion, Jim Iley, passed away.
As a guest on Radio Lancs on Friday night I’d listened as my North End fan/columnist counterpart John Roper clearly and accurately state that his side would come racing out of the blocks at a frantic pace. He also incredibly predicted the 4-1 scoreline.
I don’t know whether Mowbray had imparted this same knowledge to his defenders and midfielders ahead of the first whistle but if he had, it had clearly gone in one ear and out of the other in most cases.
Preston’s bright, inventive and tricky raiders took advantage of crass and dull-witted work to saunter into a two goal lead almost before the more bizarre of Mowbray’s failed selection idiosyncracies had time to dawn upon us.
The continued mystery over Brereton deepened when, even in the absence from the starting XI of Danny Graham (of which more later), Mowbray initially preferred the unsuited Palmer , whose ability to hold the ball in tight spaces under pressure hasn’t been immediately obvious in the past three months, up front, presumably on the basis that ....er, he is tall. That’s all I can think of.
With Armstrong so shackled by Tom Clarke, always outstanding in these games, that I doubt his pitch map would show him more than six feet from either touchline all afternoon except to walk off at half-time, we offered no threat from any accredited forward and any notion that Dack would flourish in a more advanced role was rendered unfounded both by his own current and worrying indifferent form and the fact that he was so effectively policed by Ben Pearson that Dack may well have checked under his covers before turning in for the night to ensure the Preston midfielder wasn’t there.
Other curiosities included the omission of Corry Evans, said to be outstanding for Northern Ireland over the break, on the basis that “he had expended a lot of energy” in the internationals and was perfectly fine about being left out of the 18 on duty.
Now I may have been missing the point all these years but I’d always rather surmised that by playing, training hard and, indeed, “expending a lot of energy” that was how players got themselves fit to play matches.
I’d also, I think, rather hear that an international footballer was pretty naffed off about missing the biggest game of the season to date, a derby played in front of the biggest, most partisan crowd of the campaign with 5,500 fired up Roverites in the away end.
If we are so bereft of a replacement for Danny Graham I think too I might have been inclined to start with him. You can take him off after 45, 50 or 60 minutes but if he’s fit to come on and win headers and score within seconds, why not from the off and play in the established team pattern for as long as possible?
And sooner or later, with Nuttall seemingly out of all consideration, Brereton surely must be trusted. I saw some astonishing comments attributed to Mowbray last week about his £7m signing’s unreadiness due to lack of upper body strength, his inability to hold the ball and to turn defenders at this stage.
I’m sorry, the lad has 50-odd Championship appearances under his belt. Preston had a raw, gauche 19-year-old up top, Lucas Nmecha on loan from Man City and while he got a bit of a battering and didn’t pull any trees up, he was a willing, hard-working presence who will have learned a lot from the experience.
The reluctance to unleash Brereton does nothing to allay suspicion all wasn’t as it seemed with that deal.
This went to press before Wednesday’s game with Wigan so I’m hoping we’re all a lot happier after a slightly less painful second Lancashire derby of the week
KATERINA LEE’S CLARETS VIEW
ANOTHER week of frustration, lacklustre performances (apart from about 15 minutes), not making the right substitutions or at the right time, culminating in our captain shouting expletives at the fans after the home defeat against Newcastle United on Monday.
I can understand Ben Mee’s frustrations given that some (admittedly a select few that has been noticed) of our fans can turn pretty toxic if we aren’t playing well, but at the end of the day he didn’t have the best game.
There’s a bit of a battle between the claret fans I know at the moment, should the players listen and get on with it in the face of ‘abuse’ (for want of a better word) from fans and should fans be giving it to players in the first place?
It’s a tricky one, I certainly don’t hide my feelings about Jeff Hendrick but is it unsportsmanlike to shout at fans, especially after you’ve played pretty terribly?
He clearly knew he’d played badly anyway given his apology post match.
It can be argued that Ben Mee’s somewhat passionate response to fans disapproval of his performance embodies how us as fans in general are feeling at