THEIR SHOULDERS

MEN LOOKING OVER

TOWN might as well be following a script at this point. If you asked anyone familiar with 2021’s Terriers to plot this game out beat by miserable beat, this is exactly the game they would have written.

Bright start? Check. Period of decent but ultimately sterile control? Yep. Avoidable opposition opener followed by a complete absence of response? Buddy, we got ‘em both.

The eventual 3-0 scoreline was reflective of Town pushing more and more men forward to give the hosts easy pickings on the counter-attack; it’s not as though Carlos Corberan’s side spent 90 minutes penned into their own half and couldn’t find room to breathe.

But we know that opposition sides don’t need to do that. Just invite them on, lads, these aren’t going to hurt us.

Town did indeed have that customary decent start, with Isaac Mbenza having a good early effort turned over the bar and the brightlooking Lewis O’Brien having a good chance well closed-down by Preston keeper Daniel Iversen.

Fraizer Campbell should probably have been awarded a penalty as he went down in a tangle of legs inside the box, but the ease with which he hit the deck seemed to convince the referee not to award it. Corberan was even more frustrated that a spot kick was not given for an off-the-ball challenge on O’Brien.

Bad luck? Absolutely. But that adversity did not propel Town to keep on the pressure and keep going; just the opposite, as they once again ran out of ideas.

Time after time in the first half, a good spell of possession would get O’Brien or Alex Vallejo into space in Preston’s half, only for them to look up and see three or four statues waiting patiently for... what? Without movement there can be no countermovement and without countermovement there is no space being made for runs that produce goals.

An outsider might look at Town’s abysmal defensive record of 50 goals conceded in 33 games and no clean sheets since before Christmas and say ‘well, there’s your issue right there.’ But when you make it so easy for opponents to defend against you, even despite pouring numbers forward like Town increasingly did as the second half wore on, you are always likely to give the opposition chances to extend the lead.

Preston boss Alex Neil said after the game that he felt his side did not start especially well and admitted

Corberan’s decision to start with a 4-3-3 instead of a three-at-the-back system caught his side by surprise. But then he and his men did something Town have proven painfully incapable of doing: they adapted, they changed things, they made themselves better in doing so and they won the game.

Since the turn of the new year – and even before that, in truth – Town have come into every game hoping plan A works and have been utterly bewildered that the opposition might actually be able to improvise an appropriate response.

They are still yet to learn that’s not some inexplicable magic trick; it’s a skill they should all have as Championship footballers.

Corberan himself took full responsibility after the game, saying he had failed to make the right changes at or after the break and that results showed he was not doing a good enough job. We’ve certainly given him his fair share of criticism for his inability to make a difference midmatch, but there is also an onus on the players to realise when they need to try something different and approach that challenge with relish rather than reluctance.

In typical Hollywood fashion, Town are entering the season’s third act with everything looking its bleakest. Results elsewhere mean the seven-point gap to the drop zone has been maintained, but Town will not be able to ride that kind of luck forever and some unlikely results in the bottom three’s various games in hand could see that cut to as little as two points.

But, for now, they are still in control of how this ends. If they want to rewrite the ending, they must start now.