The opponent: Preston North End
Still matters off the pitch lurk in the background in a Peter Mandelson-esque kind of way. It seems every day for the last few weeks a new story or statement appears somewhere online or in print, and each time its our name as a club that is getting dragged through the mud, while Red Jed offers everyone beer, Andrew Black published his life story on Twitter in the space of 1 evening, with Michael Owen offering him soothing words, and Paolo’s advisers firing off exclusive statements to the Adver at a rate of knots. Whatever Sam did in the time PdC was at OUR club must have been pretty special as it seems to be paying off for the aspiring journalist. I have to say in Sam’s defence, he takes some real shit off people, mostly unwarranted and over the last few weeks he has done a fantastic job so I would like to take the opportunity to say well done Adver Sam for doing the digging that we can’t do, he has finally filled one of Gary Rose’s shoes.
I must say, regardless of the madness of the last few days, I am still buzzing from Tranmere away. It feels like one of those special victories that come along once every so often, Charlton, Northampton, Weston-Super-Mare, to name but a few. Not only did the win take us to the top, but there felt like a togetherness was formed with the players as Darren Ward pump his fists in delight, Alan McCormack thumps his chest, roaring to the away fans, and Wes runs the length of the pitch to celebrate with his team mates and the fans. A perfect night, a rapid journey home, and on to PNE we go.
Its fair to say the last time we met Preston will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. A dreadful performance, Wes being subbed after 20 minutes and a Paolo press conference after the game that Sky Sports and The BBC lapped up. Things have changed since then. Preston, along with us, were one of the early season favourites to go up and earlier on in the season it looked possible. Since the 4-1 thrashing they dished out to us they have been consistently poor which left to the sacking of the much maligned Graham Westley. In May 2012, Preston announced that 21 players would be leaving the club, 14 of which were released at the end of their contracts, while a further seven were transfer-listed. Preston signed 18 players during the summer transfer window, including Scott Laird, John Mousinho, Joel Byrom, and Chris Beardsley, four players from Westley's former club, Stevenage. So much has been said of our alleged overspending in recent times, but not so much it seems about Preston North End.
Through my research, I found out the name Preston comes from “Priest Settlement”. Nowadays there are around 120’000 people that settle in Preston. Some of the better known folk from Preston include former cricketer and all round rent-a-celeb Andrew Flintoff, Ex Scummer Mark Lawrenson, Richard Arkwright, Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, football legend Sir Tom Finney, and Manchester United reserve, Phil Jones. One fantastic bit of news I found whilst trawling through the local Preston media was this charming story –
Police in are hunting a naked man spotted doing star jumps on the street.The man was first spotted strolling nude down Hill Road South, sporting only a pair of glasses and shoes, around 6.35am on February 19.
He was seen again two days later around 6.45am on New Lane and Park Lane, doing start jumps while naked.
Anyone here wish to confess?........
What are they saying about us? – “I would have thought the point was, as they are our next game and doing well, we could get a good result because the club is obviously in total disarray.”
“It's got to improve our chances... but they're still a set of players who are on brilliant form. Top of the league.
There has to be a fair chance that a resolution will be found, and the whole lot, including the mad Italian, will be back in place soon. If that happens on Friday night, that could be a major disadvantage to us! So it's a risky bet IMO”.
http://www.pne-online.net/forum/showthread.php?79684-Entire-Swindon-backroom-staff-to-quit-in-the-morningPreston Last 6 – LDLLLW (Currently 17th in League 1 on 38 points)
The Threat – Rather than a player I think the biggest threat could be the change of manager. Preston beat Bournemouth 2-0 last weekend, and with Simon Grayson in charge will be looking to build upon this today. In the way of goalscorers, ex Wycombe striker Stuart Beavon leads the way with 10 goals.
The irrelevant stats – In 15 away matches so far this season PNE have only managed to keep a clean sheet on 2 occasions, hopefully something we can expose, although on the other hand, they have only failed to score away from home on 4 occasions.
Head to Head – We have met 25 times so far, Preston have won 11, we have won 7 and there have been 7 draws.
The Odds – Swindon 8/11 Draw 3/1 Preston 4/1 First goalscorer odds are as consistent as ever, dominated by Williams, Collins, De Vita, Rooney anywhere between 4/1 and 6/1. Gary Roberts may well have found some goalscoring form, so if you fancy him to pop up with the first you can get around 9/1.
The Son Says – He still bears the scars from our defeat earlier in the season and still asks me daily when Paolo is coming home, but he boldly plumped for a 3-0 home victory.
The Prediction – If we carry on where we left off on Tuesday night then I tend to agree with my son and are going for 3-0, goals from Ward, Collins and De Vita. A crowd of 9’100 with 905 from Preston.
And Finally – Based on all the results during its 112 seasons in the Football League from 1888–89 to 2010–11, Preston are ranked as the fourth most-successful English football club of all time domestically, while only Notts County have played more Football League games than Preston.
