John Smith's PNE Fans' Panel verdict: A day of total misery for the travelling supporters
In the build-up to this game manager Graham Alexander must have felt a bit like a Sunday league manager who had a list of 16 supposedly keen players to pick from on the Saturday night before, but when he arrived at the pitch could only see nine players stood around in the cold in the car park wondering where everyone else was.
In a Sunday league scenario Grezza might have considered playing the suspended Stanley Mills under an alias with both himself and his assistant Chris Lucketti putting on their boots and taking a couple of the vacant shirts from the pile out of the large bag after they had been tipped out onto the changing room floor.
Coming back to reality and the game at Wrexham I just wish we could have had someone of a similar calibre to the manager and his assistant in their heyday in the heart of our defence.
Throw in a Youl Mawene alongside them at the back, bolster the midfield with a Brian O’Neil and a Paul McKenna and add a David Nugent into the mix up top and we might well have had a different result than the one in Saturday's game at the Racecourse Ground.
Unfortunately we could not field any players anywhere near that standard from the fine teams I watched in the manager’s playing days.
Although with many injuries and a suspension Grezza probably fielded his best team available, the side he put out were merely lambs to the slaughter with the Red Dragons not having to breathe too much fire to inflict the 4-1 drubbing they handed out.
It really was a day of total misery for the fans who had made the relatively short journey over the border to Wales for what was far from a European adventure for those who travelled more in hope than expectation.
Eleven games into this season I have come to the conclusion that unless we win at least 15 out of our 35 remaining games, we will be going down.
I also think that there was a distinct lack of quality on display on Saturday from what I think is the worst squad of players I have ever seen assembled in any season at second-tier level in my lifetime.
We began the game on the front foot straight from the kick off managing to force some corners in the game’s opening minutes.
This positive approach helped lift the spirits of the travelling faithful who were in fine voice as they willed there team to score.
At this point, with Wrexham having only won once all season, I started to believe that we could maybe nick a point from the contest which might give us something to build on following on from that catastrophic midweek defeat at St Andrew’s.
However while our corners all came to nothing, Wrexham scored two of their goals with basic headers from ones we poorly defended which for me illustrated the gulf in class in the defences of the two teams.
Inbetween this, Ben Whiteman – who had been barracked every time he touched the ball – had rolled in a second goal at a crucial time just before the interval for the home side.
The sight of the former skipper blowing kisses with his arms held aloft at the away section after scoring his first goal for his new club just rubbed salt in the wounds adding to the disappointment of a tremendously frustrating day.
The day did bring a moment of exuberance when Alfie Devine rattled in an equalising goal which was a reminder of how pleasurable following your football team can be at times.
In reality though it was all too brief and in all honesty I have never felt so low in following my football team since the re-election season.
The way defeat is accepted makes me think that there is very little pride left in the shell-shocked players, many who I personally feel are just not good enough to compete at this level and would struggle to get a game in a lot of League One teams.
Five years ago this weekend I was at Deepdale for the emotional memorial game for our old owner Trevor Hemmings.
Since his death budgets have been cut but some of the signings made by the recruitment team have been abysmal and maybe instead of blaming a succession of failed managers, it is time to change those instead.
It would have been interesting to see what Sir Trevor might have done but similar to my longing for a team as good as the play-off ones in the heady days of the Derek Shaw era it is just another “What if?”
When I arrived home from my ordeal in Wales and switched the Radio 2 sounds of the 80s on, I heard the song ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ by The Cure.
Well this boy certainly feels like it as I write this week’s column as, although we have been in the situation of “will the last person to leave Deepdale please turn the lights off” before, this time it seems to feel almost as bad as those horrendous times in the 80s.