The Opposition View – Preston

In the wake of yesterday’s thrilling but ultimately disappointing 4-3 defeat at home to Preston North End, here are some views on the game from the Lilywhites’ manager Phil Brown and a few of their fans.

Brown was quick to give credit to the Chairboys.

“To be fair to Wycombe, they ‘ve gone 500 plus minutes without scoring prior to Saturday and going 2-0 down they probably thought the party was over and I think maybe we did too,” he said..

“Consequently we conceded a goal from a set piece and then from a penalty which is uncharacteristic of us. They were a threat from set pieces all night and Andreas has had to pull off a couple of great saves to prevent us from drawing or even worse losing the game tonight.”

The Preston boss also revealed how he changed things at half time.

“I am drained to say the least, it was probably the hardest team talk I have ever had to give,” he said.

“Wycombe were dropping off and letting our centre-halves have the ball for as long as they wanted. Centre halves can only do so much with the ball, you want your midfield players to get the ball so you can start playing football. In the second half I told them to stop rolling the ball out from the back and playing 20 passes before crossing the half way line. I said let’s go and play in their half.”

“Graham Alexander started playing 40 yards ahead of where he was operating in the first half and we started to cause Wycombe problems.”

“Falling behind was a shock to everybody, we addressed the matter at half time and fortunately we possessed enough quality going forward to win the game.”


The Preston fans were hugely relieved to have taken all three points.

The following extracts are taken from PNE-online.


dvdaspden wrote:
‘A massive Well done to Andreas Arestidou. He was maybe at fault for their first goal but made three superb saves tonight and the one with 4 minutes left was world class.’


G_A_C_C_C wrote:
‘Shocker for their first goal…and it had to pop out to Aisnworth! Brilliant after that. Bull’s save from Mellor was superb too considering he was out on his feet after a collision with Mellor just a minute before. Seven goals and two of the best players on the pitch were the ‘keepers.’


davelo wrote:
‘Last night just about summed up what being a North Ender is all about. Two up early then throwing it away. Play badly for an hour then come back strongly. I think we are the only team in the world that does these things to their fans.’ (You’re not!)


6pence wrote:
‘On the whole we dealt with their attacks much better in the second half. The switch to 4-4-2 coincided with the best of the improvement, credit to Brown for this one.’


Regardless wrote:
‘Once again, Brown has sorted it at half time. It’s a sign of someone who knows what he’s doing…Reading the game, brave enough to make a 1st half substitution, then reorganising and getting a result.’


rem wrote:
‘McLaughlin on pitch for one third of match – 3 goals conceded. Gray on pitch for two thirds of match – no goals conceded.’


loomz wrote:
‘Three points stolen. Set off like a rocket and then we were awful.’


Aldwich wrote:
‘As crazy a game as I have seen in a long while. A great start was followed by about 25 minutes in which we looked like a pub side. Their first goal set the tone for the next 25 mins in which we were shambolic and Wycombe went in 3-2 when it really should have been 5-2. Second half was better but we still looked like we could concede every time they went forward.’


Elly117 wrote:
‘We cruised it to go 2 up and looked a class above Wycombe, then one bad mistake from the keeper let them in and all hell broke loose, The penalty was a shocking decision, but the rest of the half brought us down to their level and they deservedly took the lead. You feel that a better team could actually batter us in one of these games.’


G-Man wrote:
‘I thought Wycombe played very well and despite their poor form until now, I feel they will cause plenty of teams problems at Adams park if they play like they did tonight. Massive three points for us.’


Tugg Speedman wrote:
‘If Wycombe played that well every week they wouldn’t be 5th from bottom.’


Next Game: Rochdale v Wycombe – Saturday 1st Oct – 3.00pm