John Smith's PNE Fans' Panel verdict: It was hard to tell which side were relegation candidates
In PNE's 1888 FA Cup final with West Brom, with his side being such strong favourites for the trophy North End captain Fred Dewhurst asked if they could have a picture taken with the cup before the game was played.
His request was turned down by the officials but similar to our game on Saturday it was opponents Albion who ended up being victorious.
Prior to the game manager Paul Heckingbottom implied that in most games this season our team went into the matches as ‘underdogs’ and made a passionate plea to the fans in the stands to perform and understand that both the team and the fans are all fighting together.
Albion arrived at Deepdale on Saturday undefeated in their last seven games with a squad containing some players of a high quality. However five of those matches had been drawn and with them being a team still struggling to avoid relegation, I did not think that we should be going into this game seen as underdogs.
We had been unbeaten for four matches and I was hoping that the feelgood factor from a passionate performance in a Gentry Day win at Charlton the previous week would be carried over in this game.
It proved to be wishful thinking, as such was the ease of Albion’s win anyone watching the game without knowing the positions of the two sides beforehand would have thought that it was North End who were the side struggling to avoid relegation.
While this Albion team did not have the same motivation as the one riled before the game by the antics of the over-confident Fred Dewhurst in the 1880s there was no doubt that their players showed more of a desire to win than ours who, as seen in some previous seasons at this stage, had appeared to don the flip flops again.
This was particularly evident in a disappointing first half in which we continually gave the ball away cheaply only looking comfortable on the ball when playing it sideways and backwards.
This was easy for Albion to combat by sitting in deep as we also created absolutely nothing in the way of clear-cut chances.
Once Albion went a goal up early in the first half it looked like even though their lead was a very slender one, it would still be a difficult task for us to peg it back.
In the second half Heckingbottom made some attacking substitutions but these just seemed to leave us more vulnerable and open at the back.
It came as no surprise to me when the visitors wrapped the game up by doubling their advantage 13 minutes from time. Despite the manager's pre-match plea it was the trigger for a mass exodus out of the stadium for a large majority of our disappointed fans.
You couldn't really blame them for having no hope left as up to this point the sum total of our worthwhile attacking efforts had been a looping Brad Potts header which produced a bread and butter save from the Albion keeper.
We did manage to create two chances in injury time one of which fell to Andrew Hughes, who looked certain to mark his 300th appearance for PNE with a consolation goal but he blazed over the bar from close range.
It kind of summed our day up in what I personally thought was our worse home league display of the season.
Our performance was that far away from the cigar that we did not even come close to smoking the dog-end of a cigarette.
The defeat meant that we have now taken just 14 points from our last 17 games, which in anybody's eyes is relegation form. It is hard to imagine that even the most optimistic of our fans could find anything positive to take from this woeful end-of-season display.
The only one for me was the steady performance of the improving Odel Offiah who at least looked like he was working hard, though I agree with the sponsors’ decision to award the man of the match to loanee Alfie Devine.