John Smith's PNE fans' panel verdict: A costly inability to create chances
Our shortest away journey of the season ended in great disappointment for the 6,000 travelling faithful who ventured over to Blackburn for the Friday night clash with our friends from East Lancashire.
This was a good following, especially with the game being shown live on Sky Sports, as I thought that £38 was an outrageous price to charge for a ticket.
That is probably why the away end was not completely sold out and also why there were plenty of empty seats in the home end.
I think it is high time that whoever negotiates a television deal should think of the fans who are just expected to fork out the money and turn up at these non-Saturday games – and try to put a clause in the contract to cap the tickets at a maximum of £25 for both home and away fans.
I left Ewood Park feeling that I had not seen value for money from what was, in general, an uninspiring performance.
It felt flat for most of the game, apart from a reasonably bright opening 15 minutes after which we then seemed to lose our foothold in the game.
After an even first half in which our only two shots on target from Lewis Dobbin and Alfie Devine barely tested the keeper, we created even less in the second although Devine did come close with a whipped free-kick.
I think that our lack of ability in creating chances to unlock our opponents’ defence is one of the main reasons we have only won four of our last 15 games.
For much of the second half, it looked like we were content with a draw and there was far too much sideways and backwards passing.
I got the feeling that if we had played until the cows came home, we still would not have scored.
In fact, because the half was so devoid of entertainment, my attention repeatedly turned to watching one of our fans down at the front dancing and waving his arms around with a pair of swimming armbands on.
Rovers’ winning goal, scored in the dying seconds, came from our failure to defend what the legendary rugby commentator Eddie Waring would have described as an ‘up and under’.
To use another of his sayings, when I watched it hit the back of the net and saw the delirious reactions of the home fans, I wished I’d spent my Friday evening ‘going for an early bath’ instead.