Preston fan John Smith wonders what has happened to Fortress Deepdale?

Our defeat against Birmingham – our fifth on the trot – means our famous old ground is like a crumbling sandcastle as we have been battered by almost everyone who has played here in the last few months.

The lack of crowds which make games seem more like practice matches has undoubtedly played a part in these poor home showings.

But short of advising that for the next home fixtures the team should ride round the outskirts of Preston a few times on the team coach before changing into the lucky green away strip, it’s hard to find a solution to this awful run on our home patch which stretches back to the Christmas and New Year period last year.

On Halloween night the first half contained a “trick”when we conceded what I thought was a poorly defended goal shortly after kick off followed by a “treat” when Jayden Stockley fired in a wonder goal midway through.

That strike ended the Deepdale goal drought which had lasted over 500 minutes since Josh Harrop scored our fourth goal in the opening game of this strange campaign against Mansfield. I honestly thought we would push on after this against a side I would have hoped to have taken at least a point from before the game.

However, it was Birmingham who went on to claim all three points when our weakness at defending high crosses was once again exposed towards the end of the game.

On another day Tom Barkhuizen's shot minutes later would have sailed into the top corner instead of being brilliantly tipped over and given us a deserved draw but football is a results business based on goals and in the end the performance and Stockley’s world class goal all counted for nothing.