End of season is time to ponder Preston North End’s direction says Fans’ Panel’s Tim Mercer

Just why we cannot cope with a team destined for League One is frustrating beyond belief.

Even more annoyingly, the only goal of the game was as predictable as they come, with scorer Ryan Tafazolli having already been given two full dress rehearsals in being allowed to rise unmarked inside the box from a succession of corners in the opening half hour.

On the third occasion he made no mistake in making clean contact with the ball for a simple headed goal.

The second half started with Alex Neil making three substitutions in a bid to shake some life into his tepid team. The changes did breathe some urgency into the visitors’ all-round performance in an improved display for the remainder of the game.

However, it was not good enough to force an equaliser, with a feeling of living off scraps rather than building a pattern of play with any real purpose.

Put simply it was not good enough and will no doubt lead to further erosion of faith in the manager.

This fan for one is struggling to remember such a level of inconsistency in a long, long time. The sense of despondency was clear in the tone of Neil’s post-match interview that was at least honest in his appraisal of what had happened. When asked if

Preston had been bullied out of it in the first half, he gave the simple one-word answer of ‘Yes’.

So where do we go from here? For one we need to ensure we retain our Championship status as a priority in a season that is already a write-off.

The quicker we get to the 52-point mark the better. Then it will be time to ponder over the club’s direction and acquisition of players that, in my view, has gone backwards for the first time since getting back up to tier two in that glorious day at Wembley Stadium in May 2015.