One step forward two steps back

Graham Westleys wait for his first win as Preston manager continues after a disappointing 2-1 defeat at relegation strugglers Yeovil Town. A brace from Andy Williams put Yeovil 2-0 up after Craig Morgan was sent off after 2 minutes for a proffesional foul on Williams himself as he ran through on goal. Clarke Carlisle pulled a goal back late on when he headed home from close range and despite a late Preston rally and a red card for Paul Huntingdon it was a case of too little too late as Yeovil held on for the points.

Thorsten Stuckmann was again in inspired form to keep Preston in the game after Morgan was sent off and made some world class saves in an attempt to keep the Yeovil attack at bay but even his heroics couldn't keep Williams out forever and around half an hour into the game a long ball split the defence in half and Williams ran through to roll the ball past Stuckmann. Preston were massively on the back foot and Yeovil should have been a couple of goals up by half time but Stuckmann at least kept Preston in it as the whistle went for half time. After an encouraging defensive display against Notts County, Preston were a shadow of this at times and David Gray was left exposed to give Williams the easy task of side footing home from close range to double their lead and pretty much guarantee the points for Gary Johnsons men. But the goal seem to install at least some fight in the Preston players and from the only shot on target Carlisle managed to reduce the defecit after heading the ball from close range.

What is continually worrying from a fans point of view is that we again only mustered one shot on target and that was the goal, Yeovil had over 10 shots on target and there is no way that we'll win a football game with those sort of statistics, granted we only had 10 men for most of the game, but as Westley said in his post match interview, we can't blame the defeat and a poor performance on the fact that we were down to 10 men and if it wasn't for Stuckmann in net, it could easily have been more than a one goal defecit.

After one month of 2012 it is fair to say there has been some promise in flashes, but overall it continues to be mediocre, the only win came after a 3-2 win over Wycombe and we only picked up 5 points out of a possible 15 which is not good form by any stretch of the imagination in a run of games which most fans would have seen as distinctly winnable, particularly when compared to February when Preston play Brentford, Tranmere, Hartlepool, Sheffield United and Walsall which on average are harder games than the teams we have played this month, I only hope that Westley has installed some fight in the players like we showed for the last 15 minutes against Yeovil or else I can't see us picking up many points this month.