Contrary to what the opposition manager obviously thinks we are still in with a good shout of getting to Cardiff.


KB should be using Billy Davies actions after the game as a spur to the boys before the second leg, Davies clearly thinks Preston are home and hosed.


The team was probably as expected with the exceptions of Healy playing instead of Blake and Miller starting instead of Stone who I thought would start, a surprise on the bench was Richard Cresswell.


The atmosphere was the best I remember it for a good few years with the crowd getting behind the boys from the first whistle and that definitely unsettled the opposition who were all over the place in the first 15 minutes, unfortunately the twat of a ref Mr Crossley completely bottled it when Killa was clearly pushed over in the box, no penalty and that was Preston’s way back into the game, a goal at that point and I am sure we would have gone on to beat them by a few.


After that the game opened up a bit more with both sides having chances the best of which was Killa hitting the post with an excellent header, again a goal at this point and with the crowd behind the team we would have gone on to win it.


HT: 0-0


Three minutes into the second half some rank bad defending notably by Kelly and Gregan let Nugent in to score the opening goal, absolute sickener as we definitely did not deserve to be behind.


We really got stuck into them after that but they had a good chance to go 2 up before we equalised. I felt we were just getting to the point where we had run out of ideas when they gave a free kick away just outside the box.


Luckily for us Healy was no longer on the pitch to take the kick and Lewis stepped up to place in the top right hand corner, we were back in it and for a while we looked like the team that could go on and win it.
The last 10 minutes were a bit of a non-event for the Whites as Preston had a lot of the ball and in the end I was quite happy when the final whistle went.


FT: 1-1


We definitely played better than we have done of late particularly Crainey who I am not a big fan of, if we can silence their meagre crowd early on in the second leg we can win the game in the 90.