A rubbish display without cohesion and any direction

LAST week, I was struggling to find the right words following the defeat at Reading. This week, one word comes all too easily – rubbish.

Is that harsh? No, I think I’m being kind! What I saw against Preston was a team without cohesion and direction, a team playing with no identity and a team who are light years away from the side who played high-tempo, fast-flowing football for a large part of last season.

Yes, last season has gone and we are a different team, but what has happened to the philosophy of how to play? And, Lee, stop trotting out the excuse that we are a new side or a young side, it doesn’t wash.

The head coach opted to match up against Preston rather than pick a team and formation based on how he wants to play the game. We played three at the back with Tomas Kalas, Adam Webster and Nathan Baker. I put them in that order as any City fan that has seen us play would have had Webster in the middle and Baker left. Instead, Lee played Kalas right of the three, with Baker in the middle and Webster on the left. Was it a coincidence that, defensively, Webster had his poorest game yet for us?

Jack Hunt and Jay Dasilva filled the wing-back roles and both did get forward. Hunt got it some decent positions and linked well with Andi Weimann, but his final ball was poor. Johnson thought we were reactive rather than proactive to the balls into the box, which is a far comment, but for me the quality of delivery was poor and was the bigger issue.

The side just didn’t seem to understand the game-plan and really struggled with the formation.

In midfield, as I said last week, you can’t play Liam Walsh, Marlon Pack and Josh Brownhill together. It just doesn’t work. Johnson should have made the brave decision and rested an out-of-sorts Pack and played Walsh and Brownhill together.

I expected us to really attack Preston, but we opted to play with no wingers. Up top, Famara Diédhiou didn’t have a great game, but neither did anyone else. The cheering at his substitution in the second half was, in my view, wrong and will do little for his confidence.

Callum Robinson, who didn’t have the best of loan spells with us, was Preston’s match-winner and was arguably the best player on show, but his goal was all too easy.

Sadly, he showed no class when celebrating a little too much in front of the South Stand.