John Smith believes North End probably won't make the play-offs, but win over Birmingham keeps dream alive

It was pleasing to see the team bounce back from last week’s heavy defeat at home to Norwich with manager Ryan Lowe getting the balance of his team right for this game after what I would consider to have been some questionable team selections in our last outing at home to Norwich.

It was a game I felt that we were always in control of following two first half strikes from Ryan Ledson and Alan Browne which put us two goals up inside the games first 15 minutes.

The early goals appeared to give us a bit of confidence something which I think we have not seen in some recent games and at times we seemed to be able to spread the ball around as easy as margarine from the tub.

However the second half was a different story as we sat back and invited the home side to come forward and put some pressure on our defence which eventually resulted in them halving the deficit to one goal which made for a slightly nervy finish but in the end we managed to hold on for our seventh away win of the season.

While we were not at our sparkling best we had more fizz than a flat looking Birmingham side and I thought we thoroughly deserved this vitality important win.

Even though we are supposed to be having a bad season in the eyes of some fans our team now lies just three points behind our "friends" from East Lancashire who are in fourth place in the very tightly grouped Championship.

While I personally think that we will not make the play-offs, we are still in the race and have a better chance of making the end-of-season knock out than a three legged horse has of winning the Grand National.

The fact that we are just two points off a play off place makes the decision of the powers that be not to sign another striker in the summer transfer window look to be even more of a glaring mistake which is one reason for fans frustration as a few more goals would of made the world of difference to our position in the table.

The addition of Tom Cannon and Liam Delap should solve this problem to a certain extent and hopefully soon we can see them score some goals especially at home and add a little excitement to what has become a gloomy Deepdale in recent times.