John Roper’s Preston North End Fans’ Panel verdict: International break is coming at right time

The sending off of Tom Barkhiuzen halfway through the first half just about gave enough advantage to the visitors and a goal six minutes before the interval was enough to secure all three points for the Potters.

To be fair to North End they showed plenty of fight in the game and were always in contention while the score remained 1-0 but we just couldn’t get that clear-cut chance to level up the game.

How many times have we said that since the re-start of football in June? We battled right to the end and we showed some good spirit particularly as the game wore on, although the home goal did lead a bit of charmed life in the last 20 minutes as Stoke went for the second goal.

Alex Neil made two changes from the side that got an excellent point at Norwich leaving out both full backs in Darnell Fisher and Joe Rafferty and bringing in Jayden Stockley and Jordan Storey.

This was to facilitate a different formation of 3-4-1-2 with Alan Browne supporting Stockley and Maguire up top.

It wasn’t long before PNE got the upper hand winning several free-kicks just outside the box all of which came to nothing.

Stockley and Maguire were causing plenty of problems too until the referee made a very harsh decision in sending off Barkhuizen for dangerous play.

Replays revealed the Barkhuizen had accidently slipped but the damage was done and North End were down to 10.

The decision changed the course of the game and Stoke started to find space and eventually the extra man told when Obi-Mikel, in plenty of space on the right, laid the ball across the six-yard box for Gregory to slide home at the back post.

The manager started to change things around on the hour introducing Hughes for Storey to tighten things up down the Stoke right. Declan Rudd made an excellent save three minutes later which kept us in the game and almost galvanised us back into action.

Potts was introduced for Sinclair and Rafferty for Ledson as North End went for broke in the last 15 minutes,

Potts was unlucky when put through and a flick on by Stockley was intercepted by a Stoke defender as it was on route to Alan Browne who would surely have scored. Alas it wasn’t to be.

One point from the first three games is not really the sort of start we were looking for and when you look back to the start of the year we have won only seven league games this year drawing seven and losing 10.

That is 28 points from 24 games which is only just better than relegation form.

Certainly not the time to panic but this defeat was hard to take in the manner in which it came and Alex Neil will be only too aware that things are not likelier to get easier anytime soon with Brentford away next Sunday before the international break which might actually come as blessing for North End.