John Smith's PNE Fans' Panel season verdict: Planning for future is crucial now

The song, which is basically a reflection on life, stated that some years are good (very good) and some are bad (very sad).

This theory could definitely be applied to our 2025-26 campaign which I found to be another emotional roller-coaster of a ride following my team.

As a fan watching the season unravel, I personally thought that similar to the lyrics of the song it was like living through two years with one of them being very good and the other being very sad, such was the contrast in results and performances from the back end of 2025 to mid-January 2026.

At the halfway point of the season we were still very much in the hunt for a top-six finish but the promotion dream was dead in the water long before the season petered out in May with its disappointing end of a 14th position.

After the anguish of almost seeing the team relegated in the previous season some of our summer signings led me to think that things would be better in August at the start of season 2025-26.

I was pleased to see the return of goalkeeper Daniel Iversen who I thought would prove to be a very safe pair of hands in one of the key positions of the park.

The Great Dane did not disappoint illustrating his class by saving our bacon on numerous occasions and being voted our Player of the Year despite missing matches with a groin injury.

After lying in fourth position in the table in the first week of 2026 the loss of Iversen for these matches also coincided with a downturn in form and a slide down the table.

Our season began very promisingly when, after an opening day away draw at QPR, we beat Leicester and Ipswich who had just come down from the Premier League, fueling expectations amongst the Deepdale faithful that we might be in for a season to remember.

One of the highlights in which we lost just four matches in our opening 23 league games was a 2-0 win at Southampton in November.

It was a great away day for the fans who sang non stop throughout the whole game.

Our first goal was scored by Lewis Dobbin who finished the season as our top scorer and in my opinion was a very strong candidate for our Player of The Year trophy.

As has proved in the past, it is best for PNE fans if they continue not to fall in love with a loan player.

Once again some of our loan players have proved to be our best players but unless a significant cash injection comes in the summer, it is unlikely that we will see Dobbin back at Deepdale next season.

He will most likely follow Alvaro Fernandez (Carreras), Kaine Kesler-Hayden, Tom Cannon, Cameron Archer and Harrison Armstrong into the PNE Supporters’ loanees’ Hall of Fame gallery.

Armstrong- like another midfield loanee Alfie Devine – was very influential in the 17 games he played in before being recalled by his parent club Everton.

Until then he had struck up a partnership with Tottenham Hotspur loanee Devine with the youthful pair adding some much needed X-factor to the centre of a midfield which seemed to have gone a bit stale during the previous season, particularly on the attacking side where the players had simply not scored enough goals to make any impact on the top half of the table.

Although the first half of the season had been very good in terms of points on the board, a heavy 4-0 defeat at promotion challengers Middlesbrough exposed all our weaknesses and why at the time I thought the team needed strengthening in the January transfer window.

At that point I feared our play-off chances had reached the point of no return if the team was not strengthened during the last week of the window.

Although we managed to bring in Callum Lang for a record transfer fee from Portsmouth, the player with a bad track record of recent injuries soon broke down and only managed to feature on five occasions.

Another striker, Serbian Milos Lukovic – signed on loan on the last day of the window – fared even worse, playing just 45 minutes for North End shortly after his arrival and in my opinion would undoubtedly win the award, if it existed, for our worst signing of the season.

To combat the financial outlay for these signings we lost some experienced players and although Andrew Moran has emerged as a promising player, I thought the January transfer window as a whole was a disastrous one and weakened our squad overall.

After the elation of the first half of the season the second was a tough watch as my fears of a slide down the table came true.

By the end of February we were out of the play-off picture completely and unbelievably were glancing down to have a look at the points total of teams in the bottom three.

There were two enjoyable wins on the road late on in the season on Gentry Day at Charlton and on the last away day at Sheffield United but it was a case of too little too late in terms of a play-off push.

A last-day home defeat to Southampton meant that we lost 10 out of our last 19 games.

Although it has been an improvement in terms of our position in the table, I feel we have not really built much as we go into an uncertain summer with four of our loan first-team regulars back at their parent clubs.

Teams like Coventry, Millwall and Hull – like Luton in the past – have proved this season that you don't need parachute money to compete at the top level in this division, yet you do need a business plan and some clever player recruitment to buy and sell players on to improve your squad.

Sadly here at Deepdale we have not generated any large amounts of income for the transfer pot by selling players since we sold Jordan Hughill, Callum Robinson and Greg Cunningham 10 years ago.

Also during this time we have not brought through any youth players to play over 20 first team matches and sell on either, or to play for a few years and save us the money of a transfer fee.

Something has to change with regards to this as if it does not it will become more of a battle to stay in this division as opposed to challenging for a place in the Premier League.

As ever hope springs eternal in my mind that instead of reflecting on another football year ending with a feeling that it has been a missed opportunity, I might one day at the end of the season have another one of Herman's Hermit's tunes in my head – the one of ‘Something Tells Me I’m into Something Good’.