John Smith's PNE fans' panel view: A battling point against an impressive visiting team
There has been some similarity between ourselves and Saturday’s opponents, Bristol City, in recent years.
Up until last season, both teams had finished in similar positions in the league table with neither threatened by relegation or made a serious challenge for promotion since being promoted from League One in the 2014-15 season.
The last time we met, in the final league match of last season at Ashton Gate, the game finished in a 2-2 draw – which meant that we managed to stave off the threat of relegation while City qualified for the play-offs for the first time since our joint promotions.
New seasons sometimes can bring a change in your team’s fortunes, with this certainly being the case so far for us.
Sitting in fifth place and with beaten play-off semi-finalists City in third, I expected them to give us a stern test of our own early-season play-off credentials.
Having won two and drawn one of this season’s three home games – and with our opponents having an identical record from their three trips on the road so far – it came as no great surprise to me that, like our last meeting, this game also ended in a draw.
The game saw the return of Emil Riis to Deepdale but in the red of his new club.
This time though, it was not a case of ‘Go Riis Lightning’ for our former player, who had scored our first goal in that last game at Ashton Gate, as in the main he was largely ineffective, being well marked out of the game by our centre-backs.
The Danish striker was treated like a pantomime villain, being hissed and booed by some fans, but he did receive some warm applause from some of the Town End just before he disappeared down the tunnel at the end of the match.
The loudest applause of the day was reserved for Daniel Iversen who, to use the lyrics of the song about Flash Gordon, became ‘king of the impossible’ when making a breathtaking save in the 95th minute.
It really did ‘save every one of us’ from having a miserable Saturday evening, mulling over what would have been a first home defeat of the season.
Having made a string of fine saves in the first half, Iversen deservedly won the sponsors’ man of the match award.
On another day, this could have gone to either Lewis Gibson, Jordan Storey or Ben Whiteman who, in my opinion, also put in highly commendable performances.
I must confess to being impressed by the visitors who looked a very well-drilled outfit, being strong in all departments; especially in the midfield area which they controlled for most of the game.
I thought we did lose some of our rhythm when we lost Pol Valentin who, I feel, had become a very key figure in our revitalised style of play this season.
In my opinion, this was a factor why this game was not one of our better all-round displays of our season so far.
However, the hard-earned point we gained keeps us in the mix in sixth place, just one point behind Coventry City in second.