Preston North End's Ryan Ledson gives scathing assessment of Norwich defeat and makes promise

PNE were convincingly beaten by Norwich on Saturday at Deepdale and the game was pretty much over within 30 minutes.

Teemu Pukki opened the scoring for David Wagner’s side in the 13th minute with Kieran Dowell making it two just three minutes later. Dowell was then on hand to turn Pukki’s pass into the back of the net when the Fin ran through on goal after 28 minutes, with the latter showing wonderful class to beat Alvaro Fernandez and net the visitors’ fourth.

The defeat dropped North End into the bottom half of the table and boos rung out both at half time and at full time from the home faithful and Ledson did not hide away from his disappointment nor the fans’.

He said: “It's not good enough at all. It's embarrassing really, especially to be three goals down after half an hour, it's not good enough from any of us in there.

"After two good results with Stoke away and then in the cup against Huddersfield, you come back to the league and it's the same old. It's not good enough and things have got to change.

"We are backed well but we can't quite put our finger on what is going wrong but it's something we're going to have to look at. We'll watch the game back and see what's gone wrong.

"Some serious conversations have gone on in there [the dressing room] and it's by no means good enough. I'll take the responsibility, it has not been good enough.

"The senior lads, we've spoken and especially for the lads that know what this club means, it's nowhere near good enough as I've said. I'm embarrassed today and not happy at all.”

It is a similar story for many North End supporters, their side had been in and around the play-off places and there had been talk of a push for the top six this season.

Performances like Saturday’s however will make them doubt their side’s ability to go the distance this season, and there is no such thing as home comfort.

Preston have three wins from their 14 home games this season, scoring eight times. Ledson is frustrated with the progress his side seem to make, before going backwards – time and time again.

He said: “It's one step forward and two steps back and I've been here five years now and it feels exactly the same. As soon as you get within touching distance of the play-offs we do step back. But let's not even talk about that at the minute, we've got some issues at home and it needs to be fixed.

"We need to take it match to match, day to day. We have Birmingham away next week and there is going to be a week of hard training and putting things right because things need to be put right. We'll have to watch it back and see.”