Preston North End have been drawn at home to Huddersfield Town in the FA Cup third round draw, which was made on Monday night. The tie will take place over the weekend of the 7th and 8th of January.
We have already faced Huddersfield Town once in a cup tie this season, beating them 4-1 in the first round of the Carabao Cup. Troy Parrot, Brad Potts and an Ali McCann brace saw us through on that day. We also beat them 1-0 in the league, with Greg Cunningham grabbing the only goal of that game in Yorkshire.
It’s far from a glamourous tie for Preston, at the very least you want to face someone not in your division to mix it up a bit. We will also play them a couple of weeks before at Deepdale on Boxing Day. It does however give us a decent chance of progressing in the cup with Huddersfield currently bottom of the Championship.
The Lilywhites haven’t made it past the third round in the last four attempts. Poor defeats to Doncaster Rovers, Norwich City, Wycombe Wanderers and Cardiff City have followed since the 2017/18 season when they made it to the fourth round. In that year they beat Wycombe in the third round before bowing out to Sheffield United.
In fact that’s the only time in the last seven occasions that Preston have made it beyond the third round which they enter the competition at, since returning to the Championship in 2015.
The most memorable tie since then was a home draw against Arsenal in January 2017. Live in front of the television cameras Preston took the lead early on through Callum Robinson following a lovely Zidane turn by Aiden McGeady in the middle of the park. We should have extended our lead through Jordan Hugill but headed into the break 1-0 up. Aaron Ramsey scored early in the second half before the now joint France record goal scorer Olivier Giroud scored in the last minute to break Preston fans hearts.
Other memorable occasions in the FA Cup over the years include a fifth round encounter with Manchester United in 2015. Preston were still in League One but a fourth round replay victory over Sheffield United ignited a run that would eventually seem them get promoted after a rough patch of form. At home against United, Preston went 1-0 up through a Scott Laird strike, which I can still vividly remember celebrating now.
Unfortunately United won 3-1 eventually after goals from Ander Herrera, Marouane Fellaini and a Wayne Rooney penalty, with Rooney being offside and then diving for the last two goals.
Preston have faced each of the ‘big six’ in the FA Cup once since 2007 aside from Tottenham Hotspur, although we did play them in the League Cup since then.