Preston North End and Norwich City played out an entertaining 2-2 draw on Tuesday evening but The Lilywhites will come away disappointed.
Sam Greenwood and Duane Holmes put Paul Heckingbottom’s side 2-0 up inside 12 minutes. But a Borja Sainz goal on the stroke of half time and a Shane Duffy strike meant The Canaries made the long journey back with a share of the points.
Switching ends
For the third game in a row at Deepdale North End switched sides before kick off meaning that they attacked the Town End in the first half. We have become accustomed to game defining moments happening in the second half in front of our fans and it feels strange when it’s switched round.
The three second half goals against Watford were all in front of the away fans and it didn’t quite have the same effect.
However on Tuesday night North End gave the fans in the Town End plenty to cheer early on.
Robbie Brady played a superb ball around the defence which Emil Riis managed to beat the keeper to. George Long brought the Dane down though and it was a stone wall penalty.
After the shootout win in the cup against Fulham arguably any of the team had a case to take this spot kick. But it was Greenwood who stepped up and slotted it right down the middle.
Just six minutes later a swift counter attack saw Holmes running through on goal and he gave Long no chance with his thunderous strike. It was superb awareness from Greenwood to find Holmes with his first time pass.
They often say 2-0 is the most dangerous lead you can have and that proved to be the case.
Conceding at the worst time
We naturally took our foot off the gas at 2-0 and Norwich had a lot of the ball but without causing too many problems. However when you have players like Josh Sargent and the league’s top scorer in Borja Sainz on the pitch there is always danger.
We gave them far too much time on the ball and there was too much space on the right which allowed Kellen Fisher to find Sainz who sneaked in to divert the ball past Freddie Woodman at his near post.
It was just before half time and gave Norwich huge momentum going into the interval. If we had held on an extra minute I believe we would have seen the game out but now you knew exactly how the second half was going to pan out.
Riis should have made it 3-1
Chances were going to be at a premium for Preston in the second half but another lovely ball from Greenwood released Riis and he had a glorious chance to restore our two goal advantage.
He put his effort wide of the goal when he probably should have kept it low and at least got it on target.
You have to think it was one that Milutin Osmajic would have scored. Riis has missed plenty of chances in the last two games and we need him to be more clinical over this run of games where he only has Layton Stewart for competition.
Shane Duffy?
The Norwich City equaliser came from a very unlikely source. Shane Duffy had scored just two goals in the last three seasons.
An asset from a set piece he is, but you don’t expect him to be striding through our midfield playing a one-two and striking the ball with composure last Woodman.
You would expect better from our team and hope that we could stop any centre-back at this level cutting through our side with such ease.
McCann has taken his game to the next level
Without doubt the player who has improved the most since Heckingbottom has come in is Ali McCann. He has been instrumental in midfield and just seems to be everywhere on the pitch.
He played superbly against Blackburn last month, again on Saturday and on Tuesday he won so many battles despite the fact he would have wanted to have done better for the equaliser.
He’s really upped his game. Whether that is down to some advice or different coaching from the staff, who knows? But he’s quickly becoming one of the first names on the team sheet.
Substitutions
Heckingbottom’s substitutions are becoming quite predictable but that is not to say I disagree with them. They have been very effective and have assured we’ve seen games out in the past.
More often that not he changes the midfield. This is where we have the most options and on Tuesday it was just Stefan Thordarson and Mads Frokjær that came on.
He very rarely tinkers with the players out wide, much to the frustration I’m sure of Josh Bowler and Jeppe Okkels who between them have managed just 262 minutes in the league so far this season. Bowler especially could have caused some problems for Norwich in the last 10 minutes or so and kept the ball higher up the pitch for us.
He’s also been reluctant to give Layton Stewart any game time yet during a period where we are without Osmajic and Will Keane for some time.
A win on Tuesday would have taken us up to 10th. Many would have taken a point before the game and we continue to make strides forward under this new management team.