John Smith's PNE Fans' Panel Verdict '“ Alex couldn't get a tune out of this lot

It has certainly been a miserable time results-wise over the holiday period and the sorry FA Cup exit to League One Doncaster was another case of Bah Humbug for the faithful on a grey Sunday afternoon at Deepdale. As a fan you need to have something to look forward to from January onwards and a good cup run, or big cup occasion, would have brought a little cheer to what in general has been a poor season, give or take a couple of thumping derby wins and a couple of away wins on the road. We were chasing the game from its early stages but appeared to have got ourselves back in the match on the hour mark. However we never looked like going on to win the game and Doncaster were the more lively of the two sides and in my opinion deserved their win. There weren’t many positives to be taken from this game the only one I could see being the return of Sean Maguire as a late second-half substitute, although he was never really involved in the game as Doncaster finished the match as they had started as the stronger side. Our misery was completed late on with another comic goal from the Carry On Football manual and it more or less summed up our afternoon as debutant keeper Michael Crowe acted more like his actor namesake Russell, when he was rounded after hesitating coming off his line. Donny fans responded to this error by implying that our Championship status was making them laugh and on this occasion I agreed, as our opponents looked like they wanted to win this game whereas we looked jaded and tired . Bill Shankly once likened a football team to a piano saying that you need eight men to carry it and three to play the damned thing and sadly on Sunday we didn’t have one pianist.