The ACN Match Review – Preston North End (h)

The line-up

Good to see Idah get the start he deserved. If we charitably assume that Rowe’s absence from the starting line-up was due to him not being at full fitness, let’s very much hope that he’s in a position to do so in the next two games. Most importantly, it was great to have Mr Carrow back. His presence in the stadium after a long absence was revealed not long before kick-off, followed swiftly, of course, by the announcement of his departure, and got one of the biggest cheers of the afternoon. There’s only one Mr Carrow.

Hurrah moment

McLean to Sara to Gibbs to… ah. An all-too rare swift and incisive passing move that should have been the winning goal and showed we did have the capability to cut through Preston’s defence…

Boooo moment

… which made it frustrating how cautious and slow we were for much of the rest of the game. Preston came with a plan and to their credit executed it well, but their backline shouldn’t have been as impenetrable as we made it look.

Hero of the match

No real standouts at Carrow Road on Saturday, so instead congratulations to the Under-18s, who with a record of nine defeats from nine in the league somehow went and won 6-1 away at Brighton. Onwards and upwards!

The atmosphere

More empty seats for a Saturday 3pm kick-off than I can remember for a long time and Christmas shopping probably wasn’t the reason for most of them, but the crowd did stick with the team throughout (in between bouts of Barclay-baiting from the Snakepit).

Our post-match takeaway

Thanks to the usual rail engineering works I left home at 7.45am and got home at 9.15pm for this one, and not for the first time this season I can’t say it was worth the effort, or the money, or getting rained on all day.

Despite the inferior result this was a slightly better watch than QPR two weeks ago, but that’s not saying much – it was still turgid and passive and when we did mount an attack, the standard of crossing was poor pretty much every time. Another frustrating afternoon. Two more trips back to East Anglia coming up in the next week, and I’m not particularly looking forward to either of them.