Match Day Thread PNE v Middlesbrough @ Deepdale 1/1/2018

A happy new year to you all, first up the Smoggies under new boss Tony Pulis, who replaced Gary Monk after last weeks victory at Hillsborough. The baseball capped one lost his first game at home to Villa , however implementing his style of play on the Boro may take a bit of time. Sky Sports summed up Boro yesterday by stating the blindingly obvious they they are playing a long ball game. He restored Gestede to partner that speedy bloke Assombalonga. Currently one place below us the change of manager did come as a surprise given the amount of money they spent on players over the summer, reported to be about 45 million. They have plenty of attacking talent personally have always rated Patrick Bamford. Pulis will get them organised at the back may take time but his style of play will in the long term get them to were they want to be although may be next season before that happens.
Won't be a classic expect this one to be as attritional as our last game at Cardiff, we've given them 5600 tickets just a question of how many are actually sober when they arrive. Last time at Deepdale it was 0-0, expect it to be a tight game again.
Given the travelling we have done expect Neil to freshen things up, would love to see Harrop to start, probably the most creative player we have, looked some tired players on Friday.

PNE Team News: Middlesbrough

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Manager Alex Neil has difficult choices to make, from a positive perspective, for the first time in a number of weeks, as the injury problems begin to ease.

Greg Cunningham came through his first 80 minutes of action in Friday night’s win at Cardiff City and the gaffer must decide if the Irish international can cope with two games in three days when Middlesbrough arrive at Deepdale for the opening game of 2018.

Calum Woods, who replaced Cunningham from the bench, and Kevin O’Connor are both available if the boss decides not to risk Cunningham again, whilst Woods could also operate on the right hand side, if again skipper Tom Clarke is not asked to play two games in quick succession.

Paul Huntington, Ben Davies, Ben Pearson, Jordan Hugill, Chris Maxwell and Tom Barkhuizen have all played every minute of the three festive fixtures played so far, so the manager could look to freshen up the side, with the likes of John Welsh, Josh Harrop, Daniel Johnson and Callum Robinson all available to come into the team, if selected.

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Those likely to be unavailable are Darnell Fisher and long term casualties, Tommy Spurr (knee), Josh Earl (knee) and Sean Maguire (hamstring), whilst, Louis Moult’s paperwork will have been submitted, he will not be eligible to make his debut after completing his transfer from Motherwell.

Opposition View: Middlesbrough

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The new man in charge of Middlesbrough is using the first few games to assess the big squad he has at his disposal, rather than making any rash decisions on players.

There are too many players here and I need to assess the group,” said the recently appointed boss. “What people need to realise is that Steve [Gibson – chairman] spent a lot of money here in the summer and out of respect for him, I have to be prudent with what I do, look at things and not make rash decisions and that is what I will do and if it takes a bit of time, it takes a bit of time.

“I don't like big squads. I think there are more players outside the 11 than there are in and therefore you get players who are not happy that they are not involved; so I hope to cut the squad and have a smaller group.
I would like to bring players over from the Academy as well and at the moment if we do a ten v ten there are professionals who can't be involved at the moment.”

Pulis is managing in the second tier for the first time since taking Stoke City to the Premier League, but he remembers one thing that hasn’t changed, which is the need to play at the top of your game every week.

“It is ten years since I was in the Championship and the one thing that you have got to do and the one thing I have remembered about it, is that you have to turn up every game, because every game is going to be a tough game,” he continued.

“I can't remember having an easy game when we got promoted at Stoke and I can't remember watching any game in the Championship when it was like that.
The lads have told me that we haven't won against any of the top teams in the league this year, so that is not a good sign.

“I'll probably make a few more changes, because I want to watch more of the players. I have had a look at this group and it is such a big group of players, so I have to assess it, look at it and then move on.”

Stat Attack: Middlesbrough

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We start 2018 by hosting our visitors from Teesside to Deepdale, marking the New Year with a home game for the 18th time.

Middlesbrough were the second club from the north east town to play league games here when they first travelled to Lancashire in 1902. Prior to that, the exotically named Middlesbrough Ironopolis played here twice in 1892 and 1893.

Honours with Boro are fairly even, with 19 wins for North End and 13 for our visitors, with 11 draws to date.

In fact, we haven’t beaten Boro here since 1972, losing three and drawing twice in the interim although there have only been five league games.

Goals have been equally evenly distributed, 67 North End goals balanced by 54 for Middlesbrough. Three games have featured seven goals and we have come out on top in all three; 6-1 in 1948 (including a Bobby Beattie hat-trick) and 4-3 victories in both 1962 and 1964. Boro’s record victory was by 5-0 in 1935.
Nobby Stiles made the move back to Lancashire in 1973 when he joined North End from Boro. After exactly 50 appearances and one goal, Nobby went on to later manage North End and took us to promotion in 1978.

Mick Baxter, Haryr Mattinson, Hugh McIlmoyle and most recently Sean St. Ledger, Adam Reach and Alex Baptiste have also graced both clubs’ shirts over the years.

On This Date
Overall, we have played 47 league games on the first day of the year, but we did not host a league game here until 1921 and we only played at home once in the first 20 occasions games were scheduled for New Year’s Day.

In fact, we did not play our second game until 1949 – 61 years after the Football League began.

Middlesbrough make their first visit on this date and are the 16th club to do so; only Burnley and Derby County have played here twice on the opening day of the year.
In 1894, we went down 6-3 at Sunderland, whilst our record victory on this date is 5-0 at home to Cardiff City in 1996.

Mike Farrelly celebrates his 55th birthday today, having been born in Manchester in 1962. Mike was a mainstay of the side in the early years of the 1980s before returning to Altrincham, from whom we had signed him in 1981.

Alan Lamb and Gary Williams made their North End debuts in a 2-1 defeat at Charlton today in 1972, whilst Mark Rankine and Callum Davidson made their last North End appearances on New Year’s Day in 2003 and 2011 respectively.

Last Five Games At Deepdale
Preston North End 0 Middlesbrough 0, 9th August 2015
Preston North End 1 (King) Middlesbrough 3 (Ledesma, Zemmama, Smallwood), 25th September 2012
Preston North End 1 (Jones) Middlesbroigh 3 (Lita, 2; Wheater), 28th December 2010
Preston North End 2 (Parry, Jones) Middlesbrough 2 (O’Neil, Johnson), 24th October 2009
Preston North End 0 Middlesbrough 2 (Yakubu, 2), 19th February 2006

Ref Watch: Middlesbrough

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In the first game of 2018, David Coote takes charge of his second Deepdale game of the season.

The select group two official, took charge of October’s clash with Brentford, following two visits last season as well, including February’s 2-1 home win over Queens Park Rangers and also the first home game of the season when we took on Derby County in PR1.

Before that Rams clash, he last refereed the Lilywhites in their goalless draw at the New York Stadium against Rotherham United in 2015/16.

He was the referee of two PNE games the year before that as well. His first game of 2014/15 was the entertaining clash with Milton Keynes at Deepdale back in December 2014. He then took charge of the 2-2 draw at home to Gillingham in April of that year too.
In 2013/14 his two games in charge of North End were the 2-2 draw at home to Bradford City early on in the campaign and then at Tranmere Rovers’ Prenton Park for our 2-1 win over the Super Whites in February 2014.

So far this season, he has taken charge of 17 games, issuing 60 cautions and just one red card, his last game being Norwich City’s 2-0 away win at Birmingham City on Boxing Day.

He will be assisted by Robert Merchant and Billy Smallwood on the line, which the fourth official will be Joe Hull.

 

Should have buried 'Boro in the first half. Boro won the second half and the game.

 

Indeed they did Barnet

Preston North End 2 (Robinson, Hugill) Middlesbrough 3 (Ayala 2 Howson)

PNE: Maxwell, Clarke, Huntington, Davies, Woods, Pearson, Johnson (Gallagher 78), Barkhuizen (Horgan 78), Harrop, Robinson, Hugill. Subs (not used): Cunningham, Browne, Welsh, O'Connor, Rudd.

Boro: Randolph, Christie (Shotton 59), Gibson, Ayala, Friend, Guedioura (Gestede 50), Howson, Leadbitter, Downing, Traore, Assombalonga (Bamford 50). Subs (not used): Fletcher, Johnson, Baker, Konstantopoulos.

Referee: David Coote (Nottinghamshire)

Attendance: 15,101 (2,487 away)

Still have not beaten Boro in a league game since 1972 at half time 2-1 up it looked as we would get rid of that statistic however have to say we were slightly overpowered by the visitors in the second half.
North End's first half performance was as good as there has been for a good while, playing some fantastic football and with no exaggeration could have led 5-1 at the break two great Randolph saves and a header against the bar by Barkhuizen on the stroke of half time, Hugill and Robinson being denied by the keeper.
Boro took the lead from a free kick, Downing from the left with the kick Ayala rose easily above a static defence to head past Maxwell, soft goal to concede. We were level almost straight away and for the first time this season scored in the first 15 minutes, nice goal as well, Clarke and Barkhuizen interchange of passes, Barkie's cross into the box and Robinson heads home. From then until half time Boro rarely got a kick, defending deep and firing the ball forward as Pulis's 901 formation limited any attacking intent they might have had. They were dreadful in the first half and before half time we deservedly took the lead another cross from the right, this time Hugill headed home possible deflection on the ball past Randolp.
Boro booed off at half time.
Second half never really got to grips with them and bringing on Gestede made a difference as did Boro winning the midfield battle. It took them until half way through the half to level Howson cleverly dummied twon defenders found a bit of space and fired past Maxwell from 20 yards clever goal that one. Ten muinutes later it was 3-2 to Boro, although whether it was a corner that led to a goal is possibly in dispute, North End switched off, quick short corner flicked onto the back post were Ayala headed hoem again. Boro sat deep and invited us to attack, never really looked like scoring again and Boro took the points. Dispappointing result but up against a side who spent massively in summer and have a lot of Premiership experience, also looked some tired lads in white shirts, but a bit of a break until the next league game and the signing of Louis Moult means a bit more competition for places, done alright this season still a long way to go.

Preston boss Alex Neil:

"I don't even think a draw would have been a fair result, I thought we deserved to win. I have a mixture of emotions because it's so difficult to be disappointed with my players.

"The simple fact is, at this level, the difference can be clearing your lines and taking your chances when they come along.

"The biggest frustration is the kind of goals that we've lost. We didn't really do well enough at certain times in the game."

Middlesbrough manager Tony Pulis:

"I was pleased to come in 2-1 down at half-time. I thought Preston were really very good first half, and we sat off them and allowed them to play.

"We showed a lot of character second half which was very encouraging.

"I don't know the players that well so it will take me a while to know what I have got and what I haven't got.

"I will be doing my best to get this club back into the Premier League as soon as possible."

 

'Boro will be promoted with TP at the helm. The last game against a Pulis team at D'dale was 0-1 to Stoke. Encouraging wrods for NE from TP.

 

They will go close as you should when you spend 45 million in summer