By Alex Atkinson -
PNEfans.net
Preston North End 1-1 Queens Park Rangers
Paul Simpson’s North End picked up a point against QPR,
which turned out to be a dire affair. Former PNE hero Gareth Ainsworth
grabbed an early goal for the visitors, only for Paul McKenna to
cancel out Ainsworth’s goal with five minutes remaining.
QPR fans on the Kop Danny Dichio was ruled out with a hip injury.
Simon Whaley partnered Nugent up front. Graham Alexander remains
suspended after his red
card at Norwich. Chris Sedgwick comes back into the team taking
Whaley’s place on the right wing.
Preston got off to the worst start possible,
going a goal down after only four minutes. Ex-Northender Gareth
Ainsworth got the
final touch which beat Carlo Nash and a dormant Preston defence.
North End’s first have performance was very poor, lacking
to create many chances for the strikers.
The match was full of stoppages, on a number of occasions the
QPR players went down injured, wasting time and sitting on their
1-0 lead. The game started to become very scrappy, neither side
able to muster up anything to mention. David Nugent did lighten
up the first half towards the end.
Allan McCormack came off the bench for Kelvin
Wilson who had to be stretched off, medial ligament damage the
injury. Nugent latched
on the end of a McCormack cross, his goal ward header was well
saved by Jones in the QPR goal. The dire first half came to an
end, slight boo’s from the North End crowd.
The second half was more of the same, no forward play and no drive
from the midfield. Paul Simpson sent on Patrick Agyemang and Lewis
Neal to try and savour something from the match. Lewis Neal brightened
things up straight away, beating his man and getting some good
crosses in.
The match was nearing an end, as QPR looked like they were going
to hang on for a win. Lewis Neal had good go at the defence down
the left wing. Neal got his cross away, which found the advancing
Paul McKenna to nod the ball home. Relief is a word that could
be used here. Paul McKenna worked his magic to get his team out
of jail.
North End gave it their all in the last
five minutes of injury time, five minutes added on after QPR’s time wasting and
cheating. It wasn’t to be as North End didn’t have
anything else to offer. The match finished all square at 1-1, an
undeserved point for Paul Simpson’s men. A poor crowd of
11,879 left disappointed.
Preston will have to improve if they want
to mount the table this season. The vast difference between today’s
performance and the performance at Wolves is frightening. Paul
Simpson needs to
instil some consistency, also the chairman Derek Shaw needs to
dust his wallet off and bring some new faces to Deepdale.
Deepdale
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1-1 
