The John Smith column: Vardy-less Foxes were hunted down in packs by hungry North End

It was the final home game of the 2023-24 season, and City enjoyed a 3-0 victory at Deepdale.

​Having left in the summer, Vardy – who had scored a brace in that game – was not on newly-relegated Leicester's team bus which rolled up in PR1 on Saturday.

After watching this game, maybe some of their fans gathered on the Bill Shankly Kop would have wished he was, though, as Deepdale was bouncing again but this time it was the jubilant home fans who were in a party mood celebrating what turned out to be a fine 2-1 win.

My own emotions were also so different from that dismal April evening game 16 months ago.

Exiting the stadium on that night, all I wanted to do then was forget the game and go to bed with my tail between my legs but this time I left the ground, like they say in the Fosters advert, as happy as a dingo with two tails.

It certainly was fun in the sun and with temperatures on Costa del Preston similar to Ibiza, my Saturday night mood could not have been enhanced more had I been sitting by the swimming pool on the Balearic Island with an ice cool Pina colada in my hand!

We got off to a flying start, hunting down the Foxes by displaying some cunning shrewdness of our own to outwit our opponents in scoring the opening goal in the game’s seventh minute.

The goal came from another quick distribution from Daniel Iversen who rolled the ball out to Pol Valentin.

He then played a long ball down the wing which was picked up by Alfie Devine, who beat the advancing keeper to the ball, dribbled it round him and then fired it into the unguarded net from a tight angle.

Loanee Devine is fast becoming a crowd favourite and it is a credit to the staff as well as the player that he already looks very settled after just over a week here with also the potential to become a great asset for us this season.

Another positive to take was as unlike some of our games last season, we finished this one strongly in scoring a late winner after the visitors had cancelled out our first half lead.

Town End tyrant Milutin Osmajic finished off a great move by putting the ball in the net of his favourite goal from close range.

There were candidates galore for the man-of-the-match award with strong performances from Thierry Small and Ali McCann someone I personally feel was very badly missed during last seasons run-in.

However, my award goes to Iversen for making one of the best saves I have ever seen at Deepdale in the second half.

If the Dane carries on playing like this he may well have his own mural – should local artist Shawn Sharpe be called upon by the PNECET to extend the superb new 80m historical mural at the back of the Town End which was unveiled prior to the kick off.