The John Smith column: North End youngsters have added the X-Factor to our performances
Our first league match for just shy of 25 years with the money laden New Kids On The Block from Wrexham ended up all square in what I thought was an entertaining game considering it was played in some treacherous conditions at Deepdale.
Before the game I was hoping that a second successive victory would cement our place in a play-off spot in the Championship especially as we were now in December and heading towards the half-way point of the season.
There was a jolt to my pre-match optimism when a nemesis of recent times, Wrexham's Kieffer Moore, tapped in at the back post in the early stages of the game to give them the lead.
I thought that the return of Pol Valentin to our starting line up gave us a big lift and he looked back to his early season best, managing to get up and down the pitch as fast as a fiddlers elbow in the Halle Orchestra as we strived to pull back Wrexham's lead.
Although we had the best of the attacking play, we could not manage to pull back the visitors lead before the interval.
In the second half, apart from a double save from Daniel Iverson it was mainly one-way traffic with the visitors besieged defence at times resembling The Alamo as they continued to hold on against overwhelming odds as we forced corner after corner.
On another day the amount of chances we created could have resulted in an emphatic win for North End but Wrexham keeper Arthur Okonkwo made a string of saves.
It was a great relief for me when substitute Harrison Armstrong, another vital player returning from injury, fired in an equaliser inside the last 10 minutes which cancelled out their slender lead.
Along with fellow loanee and man-of-the-match Alfie Devine, the two young midfielders have added an X-Factor and refreshed a side which had looked a bit stale at the end of last season.
Had I been asked in the summer by Family Fortunes compere Les Dennis to name a side who would be in the division’s top six at Christmas and suggested our team, he would more than likely have put a consoling arm around my shoulder while saying "If Preston North End are up there I'll give you the money myself".
Although I was hoping for three points from this fixture as I left the stadium, I gained some consolation that this hard-earned point left us sitting in fifth in the table meaning that the buzzer would have responded with a "ding" and not an "uh oh" in answer to the theoretical question he posed.
The games coming thick and fast between now and the run up to the New Year will give a pointer as to whether the Preston family can go on to play for big money in the final round of the Championship game show but despite perhaps having a couple of points stolen off us on Saturday, we still have it all to play for.