A tame 3-0 defeat to Colchester United followed shortly after by a drab 0-0 at home to Chesterfield has piled the pressure on Graham Westley despite his short-time in charge.
Our impotency in front of goal continued and we have now only scored 3 goals in the last 8 games against teams which mostly Preston fans would be expecting to defeat quite comfortably. It now seems that Preston could be dragged into a late season relegation battle if this poor form continues for much longer.
On Saturday, Preston slipped to a deserved 3-0 defeat at Colchester and apart from a bright 20 minutes at the start where Chris Robertson had a goal disallowed and young George Miller smashing the bar from just over 20 yards, the Whites were poor at best and never recovered from going 1-0 down from a well worked set piece, something that is bound to annoy Westley more than anything else. While we were a better defensive outfit on Tuesday night to keep our fourth clean sheet in eight games, Chesterfield were probably the worst away team to visit Deepdale and at any other time we would have beaten them convincingly.
Another thing to note from the last two games is how uncomfortable we looked in the oppositions half, while I wasn’t at the Colchester game, the reports indicate a similar tale there and it was something which was extremely evident last night, defensively we were sound but as soon as we got anywhere near the oppositions penalty area, our players panicked and were unsure of what to do next and then lost possession. We might have even lost the game on Tuesday but Chesterfield had the same mentality and only the crossbar in stoppage time prevented ex Preston player Neal Trotman giving the 3 points to the visiting team.
Aside from 4 clean sheets in the last 8 games, the only other positive to take is that we’ve lost only 1 of our last 5 games so in a sense we are now a harder team to beat at Deepdale but we are drawing too many games at home and losing away which is relegation form by any teams standards.
Scunthorpe United at home on Saturday has suddenly become a must-win game with both teams nervously looking over their shoulders after starting the season with high hopes of a quick bounceback to the Championship. However this has failed to happen and now survival is the key word in what could almost be described as a relegation six pointer, particularly for the visiting team, with much harder games coming soon, it is certainly one Preston have to win if they want a less strenuous end to the season.
By Preston North End blogger Sean Marshall
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