All the optimism of the arrival of Graham Westley was blown away on a cold Saturday where a dire performance from Preston saw them fall to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Leyton Orient, while there were one or two signs of resilience in the first half but it seemed Preston left their brains in the dressing room in the second half and Orient carved us open numerous times until taking the lead after 67 minutes when Marc Laird impressively curled the ball around a helpless Thorsten Stuckmann from 20 yards, then some lazy defending allowed Jimmy Smith to fire the ball home after collecting a cross and giving Stuckmann no chance from 10 yards. Despite the change of manager it could be fair to say that was our worst performance of the season but it would be very harsh to lay the blame at the managers door.
However I wouldn't say he was blameless from todays game as there were some aspects of his team selection which were quite puzzling. The main query I had with his selection was starting Brian McLean at right back and leaving David Gray on the bench, this unbalanced the team somewhat and it was down this flank where we were cut open for the first goal. Another puzzling decision was the way the strikers were organised, Proctor, Jervis and Holroyd all started the game and it was unclear who was supposed to go where, after almost 40 minutes Jervis was substituted for Nicholson which also was a strange substitution in my eyes as Jervis hadn't done that badly upto that point, if anything we were worse from this point onwards as we seemed to play 4-3-3 but we had no attacking force whatsoever, while Holroyd got man of the match I think this was the incorrect decision as once again Paul Coutts was the driving force in midfield and at the moment is the only shining light in the team at the moment (along with Stuckmann)
Of the three debutantes I thought McAllister was the best of the three as we finally looked half decent at left back and we were relatively untroubled down that flank, particularly when compared to the other side, Procter was fairly antonymous but this is to be expected considering he's never trained with the players before and perhaps you might wonder why he was started if that was the case. As stated earlier Holroyd was given man of the match but he didn't have that great of a game, but like the others he hadn't trained with the other players before and spent most of the game on the right wing which wasn't his natural position. Jamie Proctor had another poor game today and if Harry Bunn hadn't been injured I doubt he would have been in the team as he offered very little today despite having a decent start to the game, what a difference half a year makes for the young Prestonian who was tipped to be the next big thing after an explosive pre season but now most fans are calling for him to be dropped from the team after only 3 goals this season.
There isn't long to wait until the next game as we travel to Notts County on Tuesday night for the second game out of 3 in 7 days and arguably the toughest one out of the three (we travel to Yeovil the following Saturday) and it would take a big turnaround for us to come away with three points but as we've seen this season, anything is possible, but today has shown every Preston fan that it won't be an instant turnaround and it is vital that we give Westley our full support as he tries to turn us from an underachieving League One team, to a successful Championship team again.
Lastly but certainly not least it was heart warming to see the reception the late Katy Holmes received at 10 past 3 with a minutes applause, every fan in the stadium stood and it was a magnificent tribute to such a brave young girl who had her life cruelly taken from her at such a young age, unfortunately I did not know her personally, but I speak for everyone when I say that heaven has gained an angel, an inspiration for everyone, may you rest in peace.
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