A game of two halves

The slide down the table continues as Preston slipped to a disappointing 2-1 defeat away to Tranmere Rovers on a warm Tuesday night on Merseyside. Despite a second goal for the club from Graham Cummins Preston once again conceded minutes later thanks to a pinpoint header from Enoch Showunmi and a second half winner from Andy Robinson gave the three points to Tranmere and continued Preston's poor run of form

On the whole, the first half was solid and gave reason to think we could push on to win the game. A well worked set piece gave Preston the lead with Graham Cummins scoring his second goal for the club with a close range header and apart from a quick fire equaliser from Showunmi, Preston were at least playing as well as an in form Tranmere team boosted by the arrival of Ronnie Moore as manager after Les Parry was sacked a couple of weeks ago. However, despite having the majority of possession, Preston couldn't get past a strong defensive unit and only mustered 3 shots on the Tranmere net to 14 on the Preston net, but up until half time, Preston were looking solid and had more than a chance of coming out of the game with a result.

However, it appeared that Preston stayed in the dressing room for the second half as we were completely overrun in the second half and it is surprising that Tranmere only scored once in this half after a period of pressure resulting in Andy Robinson smashing home from 15 yards to put Tranmere 2-1 up, there were question marks about the keeping as in the build up Stuckmann punched the ball out when perhaps it would have been easier and simpler to catch the ball, however in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't have made much difference as Tranmere would have found a winner sooner rather than later. In the second half it could easily have been 4-1 as Tranmere peppered the Preston box with crosses and shots and only wasteful finishing and good goalkeeping kept the score down.

What's even more worrying is I don't remember Preston even getting the ball into the oppositions penalty area during the second half, and this was still despite having more possession than the home team which clearly highlights poor attacking coherency, and this was despite having Hume starting only his second game since coming back from injury. But it is hard to lay the blame at the strikers feet as both Hume and Cummins performed tirelessly up front for little reward and got pretty much no service during the game which highlights midfield as being the key problem area. In my last post I was critical of the performances of Andy Procter in centre midfield and this criticism was justified on Tuesday night. At no point do I remember him having the ball or even so much as winning a challenge, he would chase possession tirelessly for 90 minutes all over the pitch, but always on the wrong side of the player and wouldn't get the ball, it was like watching Chaplow at his worst all over again. For all Holroyds effort it is apparent that he's like a slightly faster version of Sedgwick, but personally I think he's wasted on the wing and I would rather see up front so we can have Parry and Mayor on the wings, but understandably, until Smith is back from injury Parry has to deputise at left back where he is doing a sterling job given the circumstances and has to be a candidate for Player of the Season, although apart from Stuckmann he hasn't got much competition.

On Saturday, Preston travel to Exeter in a game where Preston really have to win if we want to avoid being dragged into a relegation battle. Preston are currently 8 points above Exeter who occupy the highest relegation spot, and defeat would see this gap slip to 5 and with some very difficult games approaching over Easter, this gap could continue to shrink with relegation appearing to be a massive possibility if things don't improve soon. However a win at Exeter would ease these thoughts slightly, and Westley needs a win before the fans start to turn on him, which some sections of the crowd already have done after picking up just one win in his first 10 games as manager.