John Smith’s PNE fans’ panel verdict: Capital punishment for the fans who travelled to Charlton Athletic
Preston North End suffered a third loss from as many Championship games on Saturday.
Prior to Saturday, we had won our last six games against Charlton - but the run came to an end on a disappointing day out in the capital for the travelling faithful, writes JOHN SMITH.
Before kick-off, even though the home side were one of only three teams in the division with a 100 per cent record after two Championship matches, I expected North End to have taken at least a point.
The defeat left us sitting - like many a British entry in the Eurovision Song Contest - towards the bottom of the table with ‘nul points’.
As I started to leave the ground after the final whistle, many fans vented their fury which was mainly directed at the management team .
I fear that - with some - it was more than a knee-jerk reaction to frustration that, having spent a lot of money on an expensive day out, it had ended with a third successive loss for their team.
It is a situation I have come across before on numerous occasions with previous managers.
When times are bad, it’s always the manager’s fault in the eyes of many fans.
The body language of all three coaches at The Valley on Saturday pointed me towards the feeling that they, like the others in the past, are unfortunately looking like they appear to have lost their way.
No matter what formation or system they try, the team continues to leak goals at one end while not scoring enough at the other.
In mitigation, since January - when we were riding high after a win on the road at Bristol City - we have lost a huge amount of players.
However, unlike other managers - Alex Neil, for instance - Paul Heckingbottom has been backed this summer with a massive sum of money for us.
While new players need time to gel, football is a results-based business and the simple fact is that since January, we have not been getting any.
We had looked the better side in the first half, which was probably the best we have played as a unit this season.
Having said that, we only created one really good chance when Callum Lang failed to connect properly with a perfectly-flighted cross from Andrija Vukcevic as he looked destined to head in from close range.
However, I thought the second half was a really poor one for us.
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Having conceded a sloppy goal, which some better defending and goalkeeping could easily have prevented, we only looked like scoring on one occasion.
Lang tried to backflick the ball into the net, instead of allowing Liam Lindsay a simple tap-in on the line, and it agonisingly went over.
After this, with numerous substitutions, we seemed to be all over the place on the pitch as we totally lost our shape and seemed devoid of attacking ideas.
If there was to be another goal as the game closed out, it looked like it would be scored by the home side.
As I glanced at our position in the table, seeing us firmly entrenched in a relegation spot meant my chills were multiplying - sending a shiver of John Travolta proportions down my spine.
To use a slight tweak on his famous song, with the important derby game with our ‘friends’ from East Lancashire looming, my message to the management team is: ‘You’d better shape up, cos I need a win to keep me satisfied and my faith is justified - or else you will no longer be the ones that I want’.