We are finally looking like a committed team who are playing for the shirt. So many good shifts put in across the field and it is night and day from what we produced at Preston. Dan Gosling has looked very tidy on the ball every time he comes on, the reaction to his signing was embarrassing.
A professional performance away, against a spoiler team playing a 541 formation. It happens when the oppo are terrified of your attacking and just sets up to frustrate... Still a deserved win
In a way I feel sorry for the Sky red button commentators as they have to do the whole gig on their own, but he was dull. I get he probably spent a bit of time today researching stats or whatever but surely no one cares that 72% of Preston games have ended with an odd number of goals this season or that you can get a direct train from Watford Junction to Preston. If there’s naff all happening on the pitch just say nothing.
Super stuff! A hard fought win. By no means pretty, but those are the games you need to win to get out of this league. JP deserved a goal for the last 2 performances he's put in. Cathcart was assured on his return to the team. Hughes, Sarr, Clevs all worked very hard. Players look much better in this new shape, and we seemed more positive than previous away games where we always looked that we were playing within ourselves. Defended well at the end. Another clean sheet. Onwards.
In summary... Preston were sh*t. Parked the bus and deserved to lose. We saw out the game with relative ease. Sieralta was excellent. Zinckernagel was a bit sh*t when he came on. A good three points.
1 shot on target whole game. So away days still not looking quite right. But 3pts with a pen is 3pts which is the main thing. On to the next one.
Dont feel any negative feels from that. 60+ % possession. Bachmann no saves, always looked the better team away from home. Yes on occaision you concede a late equaliser in that sort of match, but replay that 10 times and we win 8 or 9.
Didn't deserve it, but we are national sh!te away from home so no surprise. Nice finish from Pedro. Preston played park the bus for 80mins more or less but we coped well under the cosh. Not a great match, but a win at Preston FINALLY. Back 2 back wins, 7puts from last nine, not too bad. We get to play on our nice green carpet in Friday and should perform much better. Zinc was poor. Still liking the 4 3 3 with this side. We won ugly tonight, Preston are a tough side and we had to be on it. We were, just.
Bit of a worry about his injury record, but as a player, he's fine, certainly better signs so far than our previous #16!
Well so far he’s managed to win 6 out of his 10 league matches in charge. 20 points out of 30. Already equalled the number of away wins we managed under Ivic. 7 clean sheets. Biggest home win since 1982 and a first win at Preston for many many years. Got us right back in contention. If he’s really no more than a lottery winner who got the golden ticket to manage us, a kid in a sweetshop, the worst tactical boss we’ve ever had, a clown, a joker or a yes man (or any of the other things he’s been called since surprisingly getting the job), he certainly seems to be doing at least something right. Whether or not the change of formation and personnel was a work of genius or merely enforced because of an injury to Deeney, the simple fact is we have changed, we look much better and hopefully we can keep this run going because things seem to be getting a little exciting now.
Makes one think that there's a prop bet of some sort on the score ending in an odd number and he had a tenner on it.
We were lucky to win tonight with that lack of of a quality final ball. PNE defended superbly and were desperately unlucky not to get a point. That said, that pen came from good movement and willingness to gamble in the box which formed the basis of our 6-0 win so we'll see better scorelines but the basis is there.
Started getting sloppy after the penalty gifting away possession and failing to place passes. We need to control games after we score. Preston rather poor with only one clear chance. The captain led by example and the workrate of all the players was excellent. All together and all playing for each other. Sometimes you have to grind out a win against defensively minded teams on a poor pitch. We need to maintain the forward momentum and the way we played in the first half with movement off the ball and Hughes dropping into space time and time again to make passing angles needs to be repeated. Sarr and Sema changed wings and there is much more fluidity. Zinckernagel needs to get up to speed a little better. Slightly surprised by his effort failing to connect and his really poor pass on the four on one at the end. Derby coming up so soon may force some changes but those need to be without Deeney or Gray coming in. Pedro led the line magnificently again. working hard with not the greatest of service but once again showed his supreme confidence with the penalty and winning it. Love that skill where he stops the ball to halt and accelerate away again completely unbalancing the defender. FAQ about Gray has Emma surprised: Pedro fouled by Barkhuizen using his body balance: Confident penalty again:
Gozzers must start over chalobah. He's exactly what our midfield needs. A great signing. Hopefully the thicko on the sideline realises this sooner rather than later. Zinc is shyte.
Very good win that. Still chalk and cheese compared with the confident home version of Watford but committed at least. Preston seemed to think we were Man City and basically had a flat back 7 with two central midfielders shielding them until we scored the pen. Surely they wouldn’t approach a game like that with paying fans in? Ref was frustrating. No interest in stopping them time wasting from about 10 minutes in and offered no protection for Sarr or Sema when they were hacked down on a rare occasion where they used their skill to get free.
Only negative really was how much worse the Perica/Zinckernagel substitution made us. Big opportunity for Success to be back up striker if he can prove fitness as Perica is the weakest big man I've ever seen. He does at least gallop around a lot and close defenders down I suppose. Zinckernagel is super lightweight but worse he lost the ball a couple of times today and just trotted back whilst we were backs against the wall. Cleverley, Sierralta, Hughes, Cathcart, Masina all busting a gut and Zinck just letting people run past him.
Great 3 points against a team that defended well and made it hard. Away wins like that on a Tuesday night are the mortar of a promotion season.
This one felt a little different to some of our previous away games, I think we were trying, but Preston were very negative. Better than the usual, although 4-3-3 is no magic potion
We never score when I watch on Hive. Today I went for a wee and when I came back Pedro had just scored the penalty. I was only gone a minute.
The level of performance was definitely above what we've typically shown away from home this season, we controlled the match and played with pace and purpose, even if things didn't always come off for us. Preston defended resolutely for the most part with the majority of their players camped around the penalty box which left little room for Sema and Sarr. The pitch didn't help us again either. However, we definitely looked the better team and our constant pressure eventually paid off. Troy who?! Sierralta was fantastic again aside from Evans' early chance (which at the time I wondered whether it was offside). Cleverley was also great again. Hughes is looking sharper than he was up until a couple of weeks ago. Only slight downsides were Masina and Chalobah, who were a bit too sloppy and negative. Also, I think I've said this after every one of his appearances so far, and I'm not going to write him off entirely until he's had a proper pre-season with us, but Zinckernagel really does look a yard off the pace and his sub was a strange one. He seems too slow and weak to be a winger, he loses every 5o-50 he's involved in and also seems to lose the ball every time he finds himself with the ball facing the full-back, which is a worry when we're trying to hold on to a lead as a pass out to him often just means we end up back under the cosh straight after.
I wonder if this is part of the difference between away and home form , we are definitely better on the ground than in the air and our pitch is nice and true. wasn’t the best , but we got 3 points kept a clean sheet and Gray didn’t come on looked pretty solid for 70mins and the parked the bus as others have said, but then again should have expected the opposition to do that after Saturday. I watched the Preston commentary for the 2nd half, jolly nice people , very complimentary.
He's also been called this. "a nobody unheard of apart from those who follow Georgian football (and if they were following it closely enough to notice somebody who had under 15 matches in charge there)" By you.
We still lack a bit guile going forward. We put a lot of crosses into their box in the first half - and if we are going to do that we need to be playing Percy up top.
I quite enjoyed that. A couple of weeks back we would have drawn or lost and it was quite an old school gritty second tier match. The ref generally let the game flow and there are plenty of little knocks where the players had to dust themselves off and carry on. We still had the intensity. We played forward. Moved the ball quickly and the players wanted the ball. hughes was immense again just controlling his turf and setting others off. Pedro a constant pain in the rectum for the defence as he was everywhere. I’ll happily take that.
A big win. Cleverly was like a man possessed but not fair to single out any individual in what was a great team effort with plenty of fine performances across the pitch. Perhaps the only slight disappointment was Zinc who was clearly off the pace and seemed a little bit feeble when he came on. Get him on the Guinness and potato diet, Xisco. Two wins on the bounce, now bring on fatty Rooney and his cloggers!
Just lacking that final ball to create some more clear cut chances. Lindsey played well for them. Controlled the midfield defence was solid. A great 3 points from the North west which we don’t say often. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I watched one of our games on the red button earlier in the season. Never again. Both the camera work and the commentary are inferior compared to Hive Live. Definitely worth paying the £10 if you can afford it.
