Make no bones about it we were shocking. How the hell Preston are in the top half of the table now I'll never know.
Who do you blame? Again City conceeded a crappy goal, Lee lost his man when defending a corner and Mawene made him pay by scuffing his shot against Lee's knee and past the helpless Warner. The only other time Warner was involved in the action he was penalised for handling the ball outside the box from a kick out. The blind linesman gave the free kick against Warner as he released the ball from his hands to kick out. Preston put the free kick over the bar but TV replays show Warner was a couple of feet inside the box when he released the ball. Such inept officiating should be addressed.
That's all Preston did. They made just about no other effort on goal. They were content to enjoy any breaks and luck as the ball bounced around their box and credit to Jon Gould who pulled off a couple of great saves in the second half.
The game was abysmal. Both teams played like hungover Sunday morning park players. As bad as he was last week we were missing Graham Kavanagh. We lacked a leader tonight and Bullock and Boland were transparant. They offered nothing, created nothing and may just as well have not been there. Again Alan Lee spent more time on his arse than his feet. He was unlucky to have a goal disallowed for handball when I thought the TV replays showed it hit his chest and Gould saved from a good Lee header. That apart he was poor.
The defence were hardly troubled but with no midfield they hoofed ball after ball forward and we just gave away possession. Preston then gave it back and we gave it back to them. You get the picture. Poor fayre.
City are now scraping the bottom of the barrel for players. No disrespect to our youngsters. They are keen and they are quality, I was calling for them all to play after last week, but you need some experience to take control. The situation at Ninian Park appears to be so bad that we can't even get in loan players now.
Sam Hammam will find himself in control of a team in the next division down unless something is done, and quickly. Next week we are away at QPR. I'm not expecting anything from that game but I could have lived with that if we had beaten Preston tonight and Gillingham in a fortnight. Now I fear we'll get nothing from all these games.
We conceed a comedy goal as a matter of course, we have to score twice to have a chance and as things stand we look incapable of doing so.
I get the feeling the reasons we are not bringing in new players are the reasons we are not sacking Lennie. Finance. In a way I can sympathise for Lennie if he is being restricted from bringing in players. He is the boss though and the way things are going he's taking us down.
Open your eyes Sam. We need change and we need it now.
If we can't beat dreadful teams like Preston then there's no hope for us. Crowd less than 11,000 tonight. They are talking with their feet Sam, do something about it. Kids for a fiver?? I wonder how many will be asking for a refund.