If last week’s home loss was woeful, this performance under the floodlights for a Friday night match courtesy of Sky was worse and beyond comprehension.

How can this be essentially the same team that was a true play-off contender up to the FA cup third-round defeat at home to League One opposition in early January?

With only one win and six defeats in the 10 games since, the season is effectively over, and this fan is looking for a win and a draw between now and the end of the season to secure our Championship status.

If that sounds ridiculously negative with 10 games left, I will remind readers of a similar position we found ourselves in last season when we nearly succeeded in snatching relegation out of the jaws of mid-table mediocrity.

Preston North End's Lewis Dobbin is challenged by Oxford United's Brodie Spencer

placeholder image — Preston North End's Lewis Dobbin is challenged by Oxford United's Brodie Spencer

In the disgruntlement around me I heard some grumblings about the pitch and the keeper. The pitch is an easy one to deal with…not only is it the same for both teams, but we have the ‘advantage’ of being more used to it than the opposition.

As for Dai Cornell having to stand-in for the still injured No.1 Daniel Iversen…yes, the defence is not as secure or confident without our top-drawer Danish shot-stopper and his amazing presence, but that is no excuse for the pathetic way we conceded three goals here.

In particular, the first was frankly a joke and not up to any level of professional football I have witnessed at different levels over many years.

I don’t know what is wrong with the normally superb Lewis Gibson of late, but he bears most of the responsibility for allowing such an easy passage to goal following a simple punt forward by the visitors.

He was also unable to prevent the third goal as the defender marking the scorer who latched onto a headed flick-on from one of many of the U’s long throws. Again, all simple stuff.

The second was a speculative shot from outside the box in the early part of the second half that gave Oxford the lead for the second time. Both the defenders and keeper stayed rooted to their spots and watched it fly into the net from a claimed slight touch from Will Lankshear, who wasted no time in celebrating and being credited with the goal.

Only one moment of quality was seen by North End’s fans in the form of the headed equaliser by Milutin Osmajic from a beautiful clipped and curled cross from Ben Whiteman.

That was at the 12-minute point in an otherwise abject display that led to the expected boos at the final whistle from a rapidly emptying Deepdale.