In anyone’s book, a point away at Deepdale in those most trying of circumstances should be seen as one gained, and it was, but try telling that to the good folk of the Canary Nation.
For all the bravado mustered upon the final blast of Dean Whitestone’s whistle (more on where I’d like to shove that later), there was no escaping the sharp pain triggered by Brad Potts’ thrice-deflected shot.
95th-minute equalisers that find a way into your own net tend to have that effect.
Only when, five hours later, the Swans of South Wales suffered similar levels of agony via the concession of a soft injury-time penalty (oh, the irony) that condemned them to defeat, did the Deepdale itch get scratched. And then, as the dust finally settled on a frantic Good Friday of Championship football, it became clear:
City had edged the closer to the prize. Thanks to 15 heroes in teal and the Swansea gift that keeps on giving.
It remains when not if.
There is, of course, an ongoing niggle caused by a Watford team who keep churning out wins, and while a six-point gap is still regarded as more-than-healthy, the way it’s been chipped away at over the last two matchdays is – and I’m not going to lie – getting on my pip.
Promotion is obviously the ultimate goal – and that’s really all that matters – but I can’t help thinking that so dominant have City been up until this point, to go up as runners-up would be ever-so-slightly deflating. (I did say ever-so-slightly).
Maybe a better way of putting it would be promotion but without the sheen. And no one wants that.
There are of course still plenty of opportunities left to get the title clinched, especially with the Hornets still to come to Carrow Road, and to get the job done with the minimum of fuss would be ideal. They so deserve it.
Winners’ medals are hard to come by in professional football and to get their hands on that famous trophy for the second time in three seasons would be a just reward for this exceptional bunch of people.
And there was nothing that happened at Deepdale yesterday to suggest they’ll miss out.
That freak moment of heartbreak aside, it was a performance of champions. Champions who had been dealt a tough hand but who still emerged pretty much unscathed from the most trying of examinations.
The heroes came thick and fast, starting with our two Scottish internationals, fresh from 90 minutes at Hampden Park on Wednesday night. Both must have been feeling achy and tight in those closing stages but were as excellent as ever, as they each oversaw a performance of a rookie – in Jacob Sorensen’s case, a rookie only in a positional sense.
That he and Andrew Omobamidele were two of the stars of the show says everything of the roles played by Grant Hanley and Kenny McLean.
Teemu Pukki too was tireless in his running and even though he was granted only a cameo role by the Finns on Wednesday night, it goes without saying that he will have been blowing out of his proverbial as the afternoon wore on. That he lacked his usual clinical edge in front of goal was hardly surprising in the circumstances, but it was still a shift to be proud of.
And the full-backs, Xavi Quintilla and Bali Mumba, both slipped seamlessly into a system in which they have had precious little game time, at least at senior level, and were further proof of the depth of quality in the squad Stuart Webber has assembled; both players equally comfortable in joining in with the pass-and-move rhythms of Farkeball.
But it was, quite rightly, the debut of Omobamidele that attracted most attention, with the 18-year-old Irishman offering up a full debut of such promise that not a single one of us will balk at the prospect of him keeping Ben Gibson’s shirt warm for the remaining seven games.
After displaying calmness and assuredness way beyond his years, for it to have been Omobamidele’s final deflection that took the ball past Tim Krul was a cruel blow, but it made not one iota of difference to the youngster’s confidence as evidenced by another mature performance in his post-match interview.
To paraphrase, ‘all part of the learning curve’ was the youngster’s well-reasoned take on his afternoon in Preston, as he officially becomes the latest gift to Farke from the Steve Weaver production line. Quite what the future holds will, in the immediate future, depend on the fitness of others but wherever and whenever it kicks in, it will be bright.
Aside from Mr Potts late party-pooping intervention, the only other major downer of the day was the sight of Emi Buendia being withdrawn after suffering a couple of blows to the same ankle.
From the Farke perspective, he saw his prize asset being kicked from pillar to post with little or no “protection” from referee Whitestone, so felt he had to take that decision into his own hands.
Whether ‘protection’ is the best description I’m not sure, but I know what he means. PNE players were clearly taking it in turns to both foul and attempt to needle Emi and did so with impunity. Yet, only Ryan Ledson saw yellow for Preston; the same fate that befell Onel Hernandez for his first foul of the game.
Don’t get me wrong… as the best player in the division, Emi is always going to attract some attention and he’s generally handled it really well this season, but, while we’re not expecting a protective blanket from the officials, it doesn’t feel right when a coach has to withdraw a player to save him from further injury.
But hey, even if Emi has to be rested on Tuesday night, we have the performance from the City Ground to draw inspiration from.
So, one step closer and while the eyes are still on the prize of promotion, this group more deserves one that is around 18 inches tall, is made of silver and is adorned with yellow and green ribbons.
Let’s do this
Brilliantly summed up. Promotion is all – but not getting a winner’s medal now would be an anti-climax. Footballers’ careers are short and the chances for medals are fairly rare. When the chance comes you’ve got to take it.
Over this season there have been numerous occasions where we have sat on a one goal lead only to concede late chances to the opposition. On previous occasions we escaped because they missed those chances. Now in the last two games we have not been so lucky. We simply have to improve our conversion of chances to goals or six points can disappear in a flash.
Good morning Gary and when you consider our depleted squad and a defence with an average age of 22, I think we can look at it as a point gained.
Unfortunately for us, Pukki could , on another day, could have been coming home when the match ball, but alas it was not to be. ☹️
The performance of both Omobamidele and Mumba bodes well for the future of NCFC and IMO, we could become the ,Southampton’ of a few seasons ago in developing players – time will tell, but it’s looking promising.
Hi Gary
An excellent summary on yesterday’s game from a cool buy extremely sunny day in Blackpool.
Watford had an OG to thank for all 3 points yesterday and Swansea losing by a penalty so yeah we dropped 2 points but possibly found a new CB that could save Webber some money this summer.
As for Huddersfield not sure what I make of them early season top 6 now bottom 6, many of their better players our out of contract this summer so a rebuild looks to be taking place ready for next season and I think Brentford will be much to strong for them.
Back to yesterday’s game I think the Ref was on his Easter Holidays 🐣 and wasn’t 2 bothered, I read that PNE were lucky to finish with 11 on another day but that game now has gone on on to the next.
Will we see Aaron’s back or can we see Mumba getting a second start similar with Xavi only time will tell
Onwards and upwards
OTBC
Stay Safe and Stay Healthy 🙏
Happy Easter 🐣 to all Writers and contributers
As you say Gary closer to the prize.
At 4.55pm I was gutted, well P…..d off if you know what I mean Gary. However by just after 1o.oopm I was ecstatic.
What looked like a big two points dropped actually became a very good point. Especially with a completely changed back four bar our own version of Captain McMarvelous. Just like at Ipswich a few years ago a back four with the average age of 22 ( It may have been even younger that day ?) to get so close to sticking the middle finger up to the EFL was a tremendous performance.
And to cap it all it was an awful deflection that beat Tim Krul.
But let’s remember the start, it took a great save from Krul and Preston missed two very good chances in the early exchanges so though Preston didn’t deserve anything from the game in the end with Swansea losing it was a very good point for us in the circumstances.
Teemu missed a few he would normally at least hit the target with, but I wouldn’t bet against him scoring on Tuesday.
Personally I wouldn’t have risked Grant Hanley yesterday, but full marks to the player and his coach. To play that many games in such a short period was unbelievable. And Kenny too.
Promotion is the goal and Watford are coming up behind us ( Jordan my man how did you miss that chance ?) and the home game against them could settle the Championship. I also think they must hit a down turn in the next few games. I agree to miss out on the Championship now would be a bit disappointing.
Finally on Emi, Fantastic reaction from him to some old style kicking and with no protection from the referee whatsoever. The old Emi would have lashed out, and though he may not make Tuesday through injury I would not want to be sitting here with Emi suspended for 3 matches.
So well done lad.
Personally I believe if we beat Huddersfield we will be just about there on 87 points, just look to see what Brentford or Swansea have to do to overtake us.
Hi Gary. I have to put my hands up and take the blame for that. When City are playing away, and I’m not watching for one reason or another, I never want to know the score before the game finishes, but yesterday I made the assumption that the game was over, checked, and was delighted to see we were one nil up, then thirty seconds later, they’d equalised! My apologies to Herr Farke, the players, Delia and Michael, and all supporters. Mea culpa!
I’m really pleased that Omobamidele, Mumba, and Quintilla came through so well. The way they apparently fitted in to Farkeball so easily says a lot for the club philosophy of all levels playing the same way. We’re almost there, though I’m not looking forward to having to put up with VAR’s pernickity decision making again.
I thought the signs were encouraging, with the early booking of Ledson but, as the game progressed, there were too many niggly fouls that went unpunished and, it seemed inevitable that Emi would take some heavy tackles and a Norwich player, Hernandez in this instance, would take a caution for a relatively minor indiscretion. So it proved to be.
All of which pointed to the cruelest of late equalisers from a team that spent the previous 94 minutes looking anything but goal scorers.
As always, we role on to Tuesday night with, hopefully, another three points in the bag, getting towards the ultimate goal, promotion back to the Premier League.
Clearly best scoring chance of game came to Preston, Krul saved it but effort was still not good. Both goals of game were not really scoring chances, Preston got lucky deflection goal. Pukki should have scored 1 overall, but not more. People seems to forget that he was very unlucky when hitting bar and ball bounced outside goal line. Also its important to remind that without Pukki there would have not been those scoring chances. Also Mumba had some kind of scoring chance. Look highlights of Barnsley-Reading game, how Reading took their scoring chances. That is obviously daily life in Championship, now Lucas Joao is peoples bunching bag. If it would have been someone else from Reading, same people would forget it right away. Yes he should have scored, but those things happens in football because there is not such a thing called 100% sure scoring chance. If you look Preston late goal, yes Mumba lost to much bigger Preston player and it deflected to goal. Still Stiepermann run there to help and when he came there in time he was just standing and looking without doing anything. He had a chance to help Mumba and should have helped.
Its very possible that Norwich goes up even loosing all last games. Norwich will not loose all last games and even that Preston late goal surely felt like loosing, 1 point was completely enough to make promotion 1 step closer. Today Brentford can very well loose, Swansea already lost and Barnsley and Reading got 1 point each.
I’m not sure anything in life is this contrary. I want to win promotion so badly, but don’t want to play in the EPL. I would genuinely prefer to stay in the Championship, even with the useless referees – let’s be honest, any referee anywhere gets dog’s abuse; it goes with the territory.
I don’t want VAR. I don’t want almost no games on a Saturday. I don’t want the press intrusion; I don’t want to hear from entitled “fans” that we should or shouldn’t be there. I don’t want us to buy or borrow players who don’t fit the club (take your pick from Helveg, Matthias Jonson, Naismith, RVW, Amadou, Duda etc – all supposed Premier League quality who weren’t even close).
If we could just fast forward the 38 games in the EPL, and get out again as unharmed as possible that would be good.
Just as an after-thought, Omobamidele is going to cause a few commentators some difficult moments in the future! Not to mention how much it costs to get his name on your replica shirt!
6 points more will do it. And we needn’t be too concerned by Watford. Beat them and they’re done.
It’s funny whenever we have a “wobble”. We seem to get extremely nervous very quickly and assume the others have ice in their veins and will win every game. It’s never like that. They are more nervous than we are. Watford are looking over their shoulder rather than trying to catch us. The others know they can’t catch us!
We need to relax and trust DF and the boys to finish this off. Spoiler: they will.
To come away with a point from a match that should have been moved, refereed by an incompetent and contested by a bunch of knuckle dragging anti footballers. I think was superb. Hats off to the lads.
Preston are without doubt one of the worst teams we have played this season. I hope that when they appoint a new manager he can refresh a club and support that deserves better than what was dished up yesterday.
Hi Gary
Difficult to disagree with anything you said. On Emu being kicked in rotation it is common practice for many teams against creative players. A solution would be for football to follow rugby and issue a warning against the team that the next foul against would be a yellow card no matter if the miscreant had offended before or not. If further infractions then further cards.
Here’s looking forward to a low stress run in!!!
An alternate suggestion, when a team carries out one of these so-called professional fouls ‘taking one for the team’ not only should the offending player be booked, but also the captain. Two such fouls and the captain is off. Simples.
And now that Brentford have been held to a draw by Huddersfield we are 15 pints clear of 4th/5th (12 points clear if one or more of Swansea and Brentford won their game in hand).
Preston away is tough and I would have settled for a draw yesterday even without accounting for the crazy circumstances brought on by the international break.
I’m getting on a bit now MGW, not sure I can manage 15 pints these days! I’ll settle for a large Scotch when we win the league.
Brentford slip up again 1-1 against a disjointed Huddersfield who are unbeaten in 5 games. We need to press them on Tuesday, they chunk up the ball in dangerous positions with sloppy passes.
Both Swansea and Brentford now need to win 5 games more than us out of their 8 games left, realistically one of them will need to win all 8 matches to have a chance of automatic
Be great to beat Watford at home to be champions. Would be great icing on the cake to finish champions and then perhaps Farke gets manager of the season but then I believe it when I see it.
Nothing can match a Championship run-in. So many great memories come from our numerous Championship campaigns and so few from PL years.
Every game is exciting now guess we all just need to live in the moment when it comes to footy. May be next Easter we’ll be challenging for top 4, keep dreaming.
Have to agree with SJG, this has been a fabulous season , like the last promotion, but ,not looking forward to EPL . how many games will be at 3.00 on a Sat.? and how many will end with that feeling after yesterdays result . but to get there, will be a fantastic achievement ,and the money always helps for the future, hopefully I”ii be proved wrong and we will be another Leicester city, ONBC
Before the game given the circumstances I would have taken a point. Apart from Watford the other results went our way. At worst we are 12 points ahead of third, if they win their games in hand with 7 games to go. Almost got promotion in the bag. The only issue is who will be champions.
The ref was one of those that lets deliberate fouls designed to slow a player down and to wind them up go but I bet he would have booked some one for taking their shirt off or time wasting. He couldn’t even read his watch as he went well over the added time.
It is difficult to judge how good Mumba and Omobeladele are going to be because Preston were poor. However, it is great that NCFC have found two more great youngsters. Let’s hope that they continue to develop.
I would have played Hugill rather than Pukki to give him a rest. Whether it would have made a difference we will never know. Hanley and McLean did well after playing against the Faroe Islands on Wednesday. Not a particularly taxing game and a trip down to Norwich from Glasgow, probably chauffeur driven.
Let’s hope we can extend our unbeaten run on Tuesday.