John Smith column: Big bad Wolves blew our Deepdale house down in opening home game
Prior to kick off I bumped into Harry, a well known Preston fan who was waiting to begin his 81st season in the Deepdale stands. It’s a truly amazing feat.
Harry asked me what I thought the result would be to which I replied that I thought we would probably lose against a quality side like Wolves – – newly relegated from the Premier League – though I would be pleased if we could take a point from this tough fixture
Harry said that like most sides he sees at Deepdale these days he expected Wolves to score within the opening 15 minutes. Although our predictions were hardly those of Nostradamus proportions, unfortunately both of them came true on what was in general a disappointing afternoon for the Deepdale faithful.
After we started the game with an all too brief foray on the front foot, like their namesakes in the nursery story, the "Big Bad Wolves" were hungry with it only taking them eight minutes to "blow our house in".
Just like the wolf who blew down the first house made of straw, we made it very easy for Fer Lopez to score the opening goal when we allowed him to run 50 yards unchallenged on the counter attack to knock the ball past Daniel Iversen for the opening goal.
It certainly made the hairs of "my chinny chin" point in a downwards towards the ground as I knew we faced an uphill battle to avoid a second successive league defeat.
Iversen made a couple of good saves before and after the interval but like the second house made of sticks in the children's fable, we eventually caved-in 20 minutes from time.
With a third goal following close to the end, it just added to the misery and prompted the gleeful visitors in the Bill Shankly Kop to suggest there was a fire drill going on at Deepdale due to a significant number of fans deciding to exit the stadium.
To put things in perspective, I fully expect Wolves to be in the top two automatic promotion spots at the end of the season so, yes, it was maybe a tough ask to expect a positive result.
However, I personally can understand the disappointment of some fans as I too was frustrated by the manner in which we lost.
It was a day in which we conceded some sloppy goals and lost control in the midfield with too many loose passes going astray.
Up front we created very little with the only one shot on target we had all game being the one of our late consolation goal scored by Jordan Thompson.
If you cannot create more than that and also leak goals you are never going to beat a side like Wolves.
Since our win at Bristol City on January 4, the defeat meant we have now won just 4 of our last 22 league matches while managing to lose 13 of these which is a shocking statistic. We must improve and start to find a way to win matches as soon as possible.
The only positive I could take from this game was an encouraging man-of-the-match performance from new recruit Harry Clarke.
Similar to the Three Little Pigs tale in which the first two pigs ran away from the wolf to the safe house made of bricks, we also need to make our defence secure and hopefully Clarke will play a key part in doing this for us in the future.