Credit to Preston Very solid outfit Started well and played some good stuff here and there Henry can play anywhere IMO he simply is a good player Sandro's drag over and shot was the highlight of the match For the Henry haters he misplaced one header first half There was snappy movement from Hoilett who looked good Looked like a new team at times but will settle NW will get us going Nothing to moan about for me Apart second half most of the play was on the right ... A tight unit like Preston needed pulling about a bit and at pace IMO
Hoilett did his job great today and swapped sides well yes no end product but great to see him causing trouble ... It was longer than 14 mins mate Team looks balanced but it's early days My boys and me thought Fer was off the pace Faurlin second half slowed But the ball first half was moved accurately and quickly making us look like the team we should be I was very impressed with Prestons disapline there record was well earnt They were quicker to our danger every time and killed the match brilliantly IMO
Preston came for the draw and got it. 11 men behind the ball and thought they were another poor side. Really should have won today but not enough quality up front. Charlie not at races Phillips shadow of his Prem days Ned usual poor passing Holier did well in first half and disappeared in second JET big lump no quality. faurlin good in middle Fer did well Henry did well Passed it around more in first half but could not break them down in second half. If Benny had been in charge we probably would have lost that.
Apologies phone died Good Col the small zippy passages of play involved him and we watched the Preston shape getting drawn each time ... However each time it fizzled out There were no real chances for us unless we switched the play Preston moved brilliantly without the ball and snuffed out the danger at exactly the right time very well drilled If only we switched a bit then who knows as a chess match they won hands down
Wwell Col, I'm biased, but i would say that during the first half he was the best player on the pitch. Along with sandro they ruled the midfield. However, after thirty minutes we couldn't maintain a high tempo 7 deteriorated with every passing minute. I can't recall any real mistakes from the defence & Henry gave the best right back performance of the season. Your man Junior, was quite sprightly & could well be given a run in the side under NW. Unsurprisingly, the style we employed was the same as the Warnock Championship team. IMO three players were below the level of the rest of the side today, but this wasn't due to not trying. These were our three most "valued" players.
Henry looked comfortable for most of the game and looked like our best right back this season. But here's the but, he didn't have anything to offer going forward. To be fair to him, and Konchesky it seemed to me that the full backs remit was to not venture too far past the halfway line. They were both solely defenders today. We didn't get the whole full back package. If we did we might of seen Preston get opened up with the odd overlap and cross or a decoy run to create the much needed space and stretch their defence. As it was the game was destined to go without a goal after half time. All of our play was in front of their defenders.
I thought Fer was good in spells, won headers and flick ons but was quiet in second half. Phillips tried but looked off pace and tired. Charlie was 2 steps behind everyone. Looked like his mind was somewhere else ( i kid you not). He apologised twice to other players for not being at the races.
Fer was poor, Phillips was worse, but Austin looked very good in the first half imo, linking play very well. Preston nullified Faurlin in the second half and we lacked ideas. We were much worse when we went 4-4-2 and Austin got no service. Preston came for a 0-0 and got it. We lost out tactically.
Can't agree with Fer as i thought he was good in spells. Cannot understand Austin 'looking good' but we all see things differently. Fact that we couldn't break a poor team down is worrying. Warnock said after that "I thought Junior Hoilett was superb and Ale Faurlin was super too - they were the two main positives. They haven't had much game time before." and "Goalscoring is a bit of a problem at the minute, but we've got two weeks during the international break to try to sort that out." Basically that's how i saw it
I thought Austin's first touch today was excellent - it felt as though he'd really been working on this There was a general sense of frustration (both players and crowd) in the last 20-30 mins as it became increasingly clear that Preston's defence was holding firm and nullifying our attack. Indeed it was another game where we failed to work the opposition keeper, despite some pretty good build up play at times BUT at least we kept a clean sheet today Warnock now has several weeks to get the players to play as he wants them to
