John Roper writes:

The drought goes on for Preston North End after a topsy-turvy display at a windswept Vicarage Road.

A 10-minute spell of schoolboy defending early in the game saw us beaten again in spite of a second half dominated by the Whites but with no end product.

Roared on by the travelling fans, North End took the lead in the fifth minute as a Wallace corner found St Ledger at the far post and the centre-back made no mistake.

Then, just as we were really on top, an innocuous looking ball was knocked across the box, the defence was static and Harley made it 1-1, beating Lonergan just inside the far post.

Things went from bad to worse as a through ball arrived at the feet of Smith when, in my opinion, McEveley should have cleared easily.

Lonergan did well to save the first shot but Smith was first to the rebound and slotted home.

Poor defending from the on-loan full-back almost cost us again but this time Lonergan gathered well and we went in 2-1 down.

Irvine swapped Mellor for Elliott at half-time and the impact was almost instant.

Two or three times he turned defenders in the box only for the final effort to be weak.

For the most part, we dominated the second half but once again we didn't put Lee, in the Watford goal, under any sort of pressure.

Time after time we got to the box but the final ball and the finishing were very poor.

Jarrett appeared late on for McKenna and I have to say that what he did he did quite well.

Let's put it this way I think Darren Carter has had enough chances in recent weeks so Jarrett now gets his final chance at Deepdale and it's up to him to take it.

In the final analysis, I suppose you could say there were plus points with Wallace, Elliott and the second-half performance.

But Watford were not a good side and if this had been a month ago, North End would have won easily.

Let's hope the two-week break is to our benefit this time, for with three tough looking games coming up, we need to start winning again.

Luke Gale writes:

What's gone wrong? We started the season so brightly and it looked as though we were going to have a thoroughly good season.

Now four-consecutive defeats and it seems hard to see where the next win is going to come from.

There is no pace in the side and we are suffering as a result – maybe a recall for Simon Whaley may remedy the problem.

Our defence is leaking like a sieve; midfield is neither creating chances for the strikers nor helping the defence out and, up front, only Neil Mellor out of our current crop of strikers, has found the back of the net this season – and he was taken off at half time.

Our problems have been apparent for a while and our lack of depth in the squad is now starting to hurt us.

Jay McEveley isn't good enough for the Championship with his poor defending just adding to an awful defensive display that cost us the game.

On the pitch, the team seems to be lacking leadership, the same sort of problems we had last season.

Paul McKenna has been substituted in quite a few games recently and he is supposedly the captain, hardly inspiring stuff.

Alan Irvine needs to seriously evaluate his squad, possibly look to the loan market and ensure the basics that he keeps mentioning are actually carried out correctly when his players cross the white line, because at present they are not and the excuse is wearing thin now.