Made In Preston – the blog

North End have played all the top teams in the last few weeks and in reality haven’t done that badly. Depressing that the new manager Phil Brown has not won a single game yet little more has been expected in these fixtures, which isn’t a good thing.  There is still belief in the long term for the manager though.

Of the remaining fixtures there are 4 where a victory isn’t asking too much, against Scunthorpe (a) and the home games against Coventry, Sheffield U, Watford.  Many of the other games aren’t ones that should put too much fear into PNE and draws against Swansea(h) and the away games at Reading, Portsmouth, Doncaster, Millwall and Ipswich as well as Cardiff(h) don’t seem improbable.  That would be 19 points or 44 in total – not enough. So wins in 4 of those 7 drawn games are needed, seems too much to hope but it’s not over till the fat lady sings. Two wins; at Scunthorpe and against Coventry would put their tails right up for a roaring finish.

PNE 0 Bristol City 4. Sounds bad yet PNE were fighting back after losing an early goal until McLaughlin had a serious injury just before half time; all the best to him.  Several new players in the squad.  Sometimes new managers see a downturn before the up so is this the worst result before something gells or is it just the way it’s going to be. 

Still feel more confidence in Phil Brown and Brian Horton than any of the last managers, but also had confidence in Neil Mellor, things aren’t looking good for this season but it’s not over yet. 10 points adrift with 2 games in hand and 18 games to go, need to get about 32 more points, not impossible, just improbable.

Noted that Alan Irvine was replaced by Gary Megson at Sheffield Wednesday last week.

Some optimism now. We all know Phil from his extravert antics at Hull, providing a lot of entertainment; singing to the crowd, keeping the players on the pitch at half-time. He did a good job there, although they seemed to have some money.  Football is about entertainment so bring it on. 

Not long ago there was Billy Davies who surprised us all but wanted money and left, then Paul Simpson who seemed OK at first but was perhaps coasting on Billy Davies’s team till it fell apart,  Alan Irvine who was a nice guy and did well at first but then hit a very lean spell, Darren Ferguson who had two good seasons at Peterborough but his team had struggled in the Championship.   Yesterday someone quoted that Bill Shankly said a football team is 3 great players supported by the rest, or something like that. So have PNE got 3 great players: Lonergan, St Ledger and ……..   Shame about Alexander, McKenna, Wallace leaving, who sold them?

Now with 19 points from 24 games and needing 8 points to get 1 point out of the relegation zone it is a mountain to climb.  Phil has a practise game against Notts Forest in the cup then a week later it’s Leicester at Deepdale.  If PNE can score some goals it isn’t beyond hope they can get 9 points from the next 4 games and they’d then be in the middle of the scrap and able to claw their way out. Scoring has seemed difficult lately.

If David Unsworth becomes a successful manager he has the opportunity to perhaps look back to this week as his finest hour.  Imagine that 2 days before a match you’re appointed caretaker manager and later in the day 2 of your best players have their loan agreement ended.  Then 1 day before the match you’re told two more of your players have had their loan ended and the centre forward is being sold, while another key player is being told he shouldn’t be there as Manchester United are challenging his loan contract.

Today it was announced that Stoke City have followed Manchester United by taking back their two loan players.  Stoke advise they need the players to cover through a difficult fixture period.  Some people are speculating that the relationship between Manchester United and Stoke managers is close and there is a good chance it has associations with the sacking of Darren Ferguson.  This is surely not true?

If such a network does exist perhaps it would be best to be well out of it as PNE seem to have had more loan players in the last 12 months than ever known and it seemed the team wasn’t really ever going to settle or seem to be the genuine item.  To give the impression that PNE are hooked so dependantly onto Manchester United is a loss of dignity, despite the glow.  From using their training ground to loaning players and who knows what else.  The more information that is popping out about this period the less concerning the dismissal becomes.  It can’t be good for Darren either.

Following the ending of Darren Ferguson’s term at PNE his father Sir Alex Ferguson has immediately recalled two loan players and a third who is on a longer contract is wanted back.  Two of the players appear to have made a mark.  With PNE having no money to buy decent players it isn’t clear what effect this will have as North End also have several other loan players who seemed to be here, gone, then back.  The best players like St Ledger seem not to be giving their best and some players who had previously seemed good to have lost form and been loaned elsewhere.  Whether this can be made right and some stability returned must be an objective.

David Unsworth has been put in charge for the next 2 games.  Phil Brown is the bookies favourite although PNE might be hoping that David Unsworth gets some results and can be offered a cheaper, shorter contract.  David Unsworth would seem the best outcome for this season and long term if he can get some early results and this is a great opportunity for him.  A concern about Phil Brown might be that with Hull he had the support of a wealthy backer who completely transformed the club, although often money achieves less than expected and it was a meteoric rise similar to Darren Ferguson at Peterborough but they didn’t have the money to take it further.