Skip to content

Preston Match Report

«1

Comments

  • I thought Saunders was subbed to spare Bean’s blushes at right back, but who knows if he’s injured as well, let’s hope not.

  • Bean can just about cover as full back in the second division, but to expect him to carry out the role against a quality Championship side particularly when coming back from an injury is ridiculous. Why was Williams sent back?

  • 4 for Bloomfield! I thought he was the one player who showed any sort of quality and energy for us in the 1st half. Some fine passes and that bit of skill to release Freeman was pretty much the only highlight of the day bar the return of Kashket.

  • Thought Bean, Scarr & De havilland in defence were truly awful, yes Preston were very good but I think Solihull or Leatherhead would have given them a sterner test

  • Just a poor performance all round wasn't it? Probably a fair few players had their worst games for the club today and this was compounded by playing against a side full of Championship quality. We go again next week hopefully with a stronger and rested starting XI.

  • Thought El abd done well certainly better than a 5

  • I’d have Bloomfield and El Abd marked higher but we all see performances differently.

  • I see Bloomfield as a fringe player not a certain starter. Yes he has been a brilliant servant to the club. El Abd still does fill me full of confidence. We are much weaker at the back this season. Gareth needs to do some business in the transfer window if we are to keep pace and finish in the play-offs.

  • Not fill me full of confidence

  • @Blue_since_1990 Wouldn’t disagree with any of that.

  • Jombati and Stewart back would give us as strong a back four as we have seen all season. Sounds simple but our vulnerability to injury at the back is a big worry.

  • @bigred87 said:
    Thought El abd done well certainly better than a 5

    Agreed, El Abd actually had one of his best games when you think what he had around him and the opposition.
    Completely disagree re O’Nein, chased shadows all day no better than Saunders or Blooms.

  • Funny how we all see the game so differently, isn’t it?
    I agree that El Abd had a decent game but I thought Saunders was way off the pace and I’m a huge admirer of him.

  • I thought pretty much everyone was off the pace apart from El abd and brown......

  • .......and Freeman.
    I did wonder how fit Saunders was following the suicidal crossfield pass after one minute. Shades of Wembley, albeit a very different scenario and 50% more game time. I do hope he recovers swiftly as his absence and Eze’s departure leave us bereft of creativity.

  • I thought El Abd started poorly and looked a bit like he did at the start of the season but after a couple of decent tackles grew into the game. Hopefully fully match fit he'll quickly regain his more recent form and authority. Bayo really looks like he could do with a rest

  • edited January 2018

    @PBo , sparing Bean may have been a worthwhile choice, but bringing WDH on, who within minutes had been roasted for a goal, and was generally dreadful wouldn't make any sort of sense.

    Bean's main poorness was the comedy lack of throw in ability, but then he has spent most of his career in the centre not taking them. Still, obviously a professional who should be up to better!
    Saunders was clearly nursing something.

    We used to rest Bayo a bit better. To play him through that 4 game spell, and then keep him on to the death 5-1 down was a bit unnecessary!

  • @Malone said

    “Bean's main poorness was the comedy lack of throw in ability, but then he has spent most of his career in the centre not taking them. Still, obviously a professional who should be up to better!

    Saunders was clearly nursing something.............”

    I think you are being generous to Marcus Bean. The shortcomings yesterday seemed to me to extend well beyond the comical inability to take a throw-in even (especially?) after half a minute of weighing up the options.

    Sam Saunders seems to spend a good deal of time nursing something; for a creative midfielder he works harder than most, tackling (and often winning the ball back) all over the pitch. No wonder he picks up lots of knocks and pulls. Just have to hope that he never misses more than the odd game now and again.

  • Maybe true on Bean. I think I just see him as a physical scuffler, so never expect anything at all ball wise, unlike a lot who seem to expect him to be silky.

    I don't remember Saunders as being like this first time around, with the getting around and physical. Has he added it, or was he like it last time?
    Either way, it'll be poetic justice if we end up in the play off final and he puts a big performance after he was robbed of one last time.

    I don't quite follow a couple of others' views on here that just because we were smashed by a top half champ team that we'd quite obviously struggle massively in league 1

  • After the first Bean throw-in fail, I was reminiscing with those around me about that wonderful time that the swiftly-forgotten Steve Dell screwed up his throws for us a full three times LIVE!!! on Sky, and how surely Bean at least couldn't reach those dizzy heights. Well...

    To be fair as others have said, he is totally out of position and being asked to put in a shift as a fish out of water, but still...

  • I remember bunking off school one afternoon to watch the reserves play Col U at Adams Park. Steve Dell was on trial for that game and I remember being hugely impressed by both him and fellow triallist Charlie Mapes. We signed both of them and they subsequently sunk without trace.

  • @Malone said:

    We used to rest Bayo a bit better. To play him through that 4 game spell, and then keep him on to the death 5-1 down was a bit unnecessary!

    I wonder if it was because of Kashket coming on and trying to give him someone to play off. The beginnings of a league partnership perhaps?

  • A resumption of that highly productive partnership?

  • Blimey. Charlie Mapes. There's a name I'd totally forgotten. Wasn't his terrace chant something about being drugs tested?

  • @micra said:
    A resumption of that highly productive partnership?

    Yes indeed, I'm just assuming that it may take a while to cement that partnership after such a long time out. A poor choice of words from me to describe it.

  • @OxfordBlue Ah yes!

    "Charlie is a midfielder, midfielder, midfielder, Charlie is a midfielder he plays in blue. He's great going forward, he's great going back [he wasn't] and when he goes home he gets f***ed up on... Charlie is a midfielder" etc. Repeat until funny.

    Free transfer from Berkhamsted and I think Dell was from Beaconsfield. Mapes did actually score a few goals for us to be fair, including the only goal in our opening day win over (I think) Stockport, which I missed as I'd held a clandestine house party the night before and was trying to clean my mate's vomit off the carpet before my parents got back home.

    We were relegated that season, Mapes and Dell were both released and my parents found out anyway. A terrible year.

  • edited January 2018

    Thanks for that colourful post @Jonny_King. For someone with only a decade and a half in leafy Bucks, these heart-warming stories of far gone days, past players, chants and vomit on carpets past are a valuable resource! My only tenuous link to the olden days is that Mrs W was a nurse in the hospital when it overlooked Loakes Park!

  • @Wendoverman Ah, wonder if I was in the tender care of Mrs @Wendoverman as I was in Wycombe General after head butting a lorry using my motorbike as the launchpad! Not recommended and I still bear the scars today.

  • Depends when it was @EwanHoosaami Mrs W - late 80s very early 90s...certainly a possibility. Apparently every Saturday afternoon the male patients, like the Walking Dead, would amble over to the windows and stand there motionless for 90 minutes.

  • Didn't we sign Andy Bell at the same time as Mapes and Dell? Possibly off the back of looking good in a reserve game against ColU...

Sign In or Register to comment.