John Smith’s PNE Fans’ Panel verdict: Preston were ‘Dogged’ by the same old problem

Our only win against The Swans since 1961 was in a game played behind closed doors during Covid. so I can safely say it was the same for almost every one of the travelling faithful who had made the long midweek trip down to The Valleys to support their team.

It was a strange pre-match atmosphere which was more akin to that of a concert all because Swansea's new co-owner Snoop Dogg was on his first visit to the club he had just bought a minority stake in. The famous musician was paraded around the perimeter of the pitch for 20 minutes before kick-off.

There was an extravagant flashing light show with white towels carrying a photograph of the Californian rapper being twirled around in the air by the majority of fans inside the ground. However, our hearty band of travelling faithful could only look on bemused by all the America n- style pre-match razzmatazz after they were left out of the free towel giveaway.

The loud rap tunes played over the tannoy came out long after my nightclubbing days had ended, so as far as the tunes went, I was more concerned as to whether our manager could get a different one out of our players, rather than the one they had played during Friday night's debacle at Blackburn, when the football finally started.

It certainly appeared so as we began the game playing with our tails up deservedly taking a 26th-minute lead with a Daniel Jebbison goal.

The home fans towels were soon put away under their seats as the small but voiciferous away following, who at this point were really enjoying the game, started to out-sing the quietened home fans. As well as our fans being at the top of the singing charts our team also went into the interval at the top of all the statistical ones.

Unfortunately though, the second half followed the all too familiar script I've seen many times before. We started to sit back trying to defend our narrow lead, as we failed to combat the home side’s triple half-time substitution which changed the dynamics of the game, making it another ‘game of two halves’.

Our five substitutions which finally started on the hour mark and came after much deliberation from our manager and coaches on the touchline, just seemed to further unbalance our side. I personally thought that all the chopping and changing of positions and formations did nothing to change course of the game as, in the main, Swansea continued to press forward.

In my opinion we were lucky to still have our one-goal advantage intact, as the game moved into its last minute of injury time; it looked like our team would end up as the Top Dog in the Liberty Stadium. This was due to a mixture of a slice of luck, together with some dogged defending – especially when making some really good defensive blocks as the home side pinged a large number of balls into our penalty box.

But at this point after a nervous last 20 minutes, I thought that we had at last managed to end the dastardly Swansea hoodoo, more so with the ball being down at the corner flag in the front of our fans who were getting ready for a celebration.

That we did not I felt was another example of how our time-wasting tactic of running the clock down, with a player going down injured so another touchline conference could take place, once again caught up with us. It might be the face of modern football but to me football is a simple game so our players should know how to see the game out without all these shenanigans.

How on earth we could not hold onto to the ball from this position at this stage of the game and allow the opposition to go straight upfield and score is beyond me.

If we had kept players back and knocked the ball in the box away from the keeper we surely could have held on to a win .

After throwing away two points at the death and having to endure another miserable journey home, punctuated by motorway closures, I will have to consider throwing the towel in myself on any more long midweek journeys down to The Valleys.