Play-offs? Forget it on this evidence says Preston North End Fans’ Panel’s John Roper

But the home side just wanted it that little bit more and two goals in the last 35 minutes were more than enough to give Barnsley the points.

A much- changed PNE saw a 3-4-1-2 formation and in my opinion it didn’t work on the night with North End humping the ball up the field in a fashion similar to the John Beck days.

The idea of having Paul Huntington and Jordan Storey on the bench and playing two full-backs in a back three will take a bit explaining to me as Darnell Fisher, for one, looked lost for most of the evening.

I don’t subscribe to the theory that Preston were worth a draw because even in the first half Barnsley just looked that more likely to score and when their chances came after they break they were certainly more clinical than a powder puff Preston attack.

Alex Neil made five changes to the side that was comprehensively beaten at Luton on Saturday with Huntington, Ledson, Potts, Sinclair and Stockley making way for Earl, Gallagher, Johnson, Maguire and Riis.

North End were first out of the traps and Josh Earl forced ann early corner down the left-hand side. From the resulting Gallagher cross, the ball was flicked on by a defender and it found Sean Maguire at the back post who headed in to give North End the lead after just 80 seconds.

Barnsley rallied but not very meaningfully with Declan Rudd making a save just before the quarter-hour.

The game was quite end to end in terms of the ball being up in the air but neither side could really penetrate enough to force the issue.

The Tykes’ best chance came three minutes from the break with a back-post chip that went over.

Just before the interval Emil Riis was clean through on the keeper but shot straight at him instead of squaring to Johnson who, no doubt, let the big striker know what he thought of his decision making.

No changes at the break but a few warning signs that Preston would have to take the home side seriously.

And they were proved correct as Mowatt equalised with an excellent strike nine minutes after the break after he was twice set up by Styles, who was by far the best player on the field.

Browne was then booked for a silly tackle as the manager made four changes over the next 15 minutes bringing on Sinclair, Rafferty, Stockley and Bayliss for Riis. Maguire, Barkhuizen and Gallagher.

Instead of galvanising North End we found ourselves 2-1 down in the 80th minute with Adeboyejo scoring the winner for Barnsley with a good finish.

North End tried to salvage something late on but our play smacked of desperation at times and we were not making any inroads into a pretty average Barnsley defence, and after four minutes of added time our second defeat in four days was complete.

I don’t suppose anyone can say with 100% conviction what the problem is but I thought some of our issues at Oakwell were of our own making.

Out of the back five you could say that only Josh Earl was in his correct position, as even Ben Davies had to play on the right of a three with two right-footed centre halves on the bench.

In the middle of the park I thought that Browne and Gally were pretty ineffective and, while I can excuse Gally having just come back from injury, the deteriorating form of Browne is something of real concern for Alex Neil.

Johnson looked in no-man’s-land for parts of the game behind the front two who tried hard but made little impact save that of Maguire’s header in the second minute.

It was a bad night on the road for North End compounded by a shocker of a performance at Luton a few days ago.

I think we can forget the play-offs this season if this form does not improve very quickly, and perhaps there are more problems at Preston than meet the eye.