A first trip to Spotland for a very long time, surprisingly up beat about this one hopefully we can progress further in the competition. Coutts suspended, probably be a shed load of changes and it will be cold and dank on the moors. There may even be a debut for our new German keeper. Suspect he may be busy I'm going will give a full match report on Wednesday
On a dank night that became chillier by the minute North End progressed through to the next round of the Johnstones Paint Trophy after a penalty shoot after after the game had ended 1-1. As is tradition with North End it was a tale of two halves. Decent in the first distincly second best after the break. An early opertunity after Mayor pinpoint centre missed both Forte and Tsoumou by inche and Ashbee shot from 30 yards was just about saved by Lucas in the home goal. Rochdale got into the game and a ling shot went close before giant Preston keeper Stuckmann made a save from Jones. North End regained control and finally ook the lead about 10 minutes from half time when a ball from the left ended up with Barton who lashed home from 10 yards. Just before half time a Mayor header was cleared from the line. The second half was a totally different dominated by the home side who duly equalised shortly after half time when Bunn turned two defenders before firing home a super goal to level the scores. It was all Dale and North End resorted to lumping the ball forward to the two lads up front who were winning little in the air. After the initial onslaught Rochdale began to run oput of steam and penalties looked a certainty apart from an effort from North End's young substitute Clark whose left foot drive was narrowly wide. Stuckmann proved the saviour in the shoot out with two cracking saves, North End did not miss a kick and went through 4-2.
