Preston North End v Crystal Palace
Coca-Cola Championship
Saturday 1st March, 3pm kick-off
Final Score: Preston 0 Crystal Palace 1 (Morrison 76)
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90 + 3 mins: That's it - all over. A disappointing afternoon ends in defeat, with most of us having previously thought this was one of our best chances to pick up another three point haul. Oh well, it'll be another interesting night down at Leicester on Tuesday night. Join Matt and I on World for that one from 7.15pm, with live minute-by-minute coverage from one of us as usual. Keep the faith!
90 + 2 mins: The ball is spending all of its time at the wrong end of the field right now.
90 mins: There will be three minutes of added time. Come on PNE!
89 mins: Yellow card - Watson booked for some shennanigans at a corner. Timewaster!
88 mins: Substitution for Palace - the knock ends Moses' full debut, and another youngster, Ashley Robinson, gets his first chance to impress.
88 mins: Today's crowd is revealed as being 12,347. Let's hope the media get it right this time after the mysteriously missing 2,000 fans against Stoke!
87 mins: Yellow card - Matt Hill is the latest man in the book after a hard challenge on Moses.
85 mins: Billy Jones wins a corner off Freedman with a similar burst to the one that won him a penalty against Portsmouth. A deep Carter corner is headed back across Ormerod and Brown heads straight at Speroni, but it wouldn't have counted had he beaten him because the referee had spotted a push inside the box.
83 mins: A good looping effort from Fletcher is parried once by Lonergan before being caught on the bounce.
82 mins: Substitution for Preston - The hosts go for broke, with Brett Ormerod on for Sedgwick. Looks like we're going 4-3-3 in a bid to salvage this game.
81 mins: Derry fouls Brown, but McKenna curls the free kick over the bar from 20 yards.
79 mins: Some good interplay brings Mellor, Neal and Hill into the game in a neat passing move, but a crunching clearance from Matt Lawrence on Hill sends the ball into the building site.
78 mins: Carter looks ok, and is eventually allowed to return after play re-starts with a drop ball.
77 mins: That's a blow, because it comes off the back of a good spell of PNE pressure, and now Darren Carter is down within the box, requiring treatment.
76 mins: Goal for Palace! Watson's corner from the right is flicked towards goal, and Clinton Morrison slides in to smash to ball home from very close range. 0-1
75 mins: The latest set play comes to nothing, but at least the excitement level has gone up a notch.
74 mins: Great work from the corner - Carter plays a one-two with McKenna, before lining up a great position for Neal to strike from 18 yards. He does so with relish, but it hits Shaun Derry on the shoulder and it's another corner.
73 mins: A good burst from Carter, who slides it through for Mellor, and only another good stop from Speroni keeps the ball out - corner.
71 mins: Some good build up for PNE involving all of the midfield four, but Sedgwick's shot is blocked as he takes a pass from Jones.
67 mins: Best chance of the game for Preston. McKenna's challenge forces the ball through to Sedgwick, who strikes with venom, and Speroni has to tip it over the bar in spectacular fashion after it deflects off an attempted block from Hudson.
66 mins: Freedman crosses from the left, but Mawene cuts out the danger from what looked like a very inviting ball - a striker's dream.
63 mins: People who are bored often say they'd rather watch paint dry. Thanks to the wonders of our new stand in progress, I'm sure I can see some lovely shining emulsion paint solidifying over on the far side.
61 mins: Substitution for Palace - Ifill off, Dougie Freedman on.
60 mins: Apologies to any World subscribers who lost commentary for a while. The problem has now been rectified and hopefully you can all now hear it coming through loud and clear.
56 mins: Ifill shoots, Lonergan saves.
54 mins: Mark Hudson clobbers Mellor, but 'nothing doing' says the ref.
52 mins: As you'd probably expect, Sedge has moved over to his preferred right wing in this half to allow Lewis Neal to also play on his natural flank.
51 mins: A well struck effort by Moses narrowly flies over. It gets the usual jeers from the guys who catch it on the Kop, but it wasn't all that far away.
47 mins: A typically busy arrival from Mells, who crosses encouragingly from the left, but Speroni collects.
1607: The game recommences, with PNE fielding just nine of the men that started the game after that particular switch.
1606: Double substitution for PNE - It's Whaley and Hawley that go off; Lewis Neal and Neil Mellor that come on.
1605: Now here's a little bit of excitement - PNE are back out, and will make a double substitution!
1604: Just to keep you up to date with a few other nil-nils around the UK... I'm particularly intrigued to see that the Highland Football League game between Nairn County and Cove Rangers is currently scoreless, as is the big game in Unibond Division One North between FC United and Bamber Bridge. You may remember they played each other last week as well.
1602: Lonners is back out for his regular session of extra practice with Dave Timmins (or 'Timmo' to his mates).
1556: Not fair. Two young ladies bring up a pie and a Bovril for PNE Media colleague Matt, which is something of a regular arrangement. Neither Rob nor I have servants in this section of the stand to offer us such a service, and I'm feeling all the more hungry now that I've consumed the finger of Twix that Rob gave to me during the early stages of the half. The Twix and the wasp were probably the highlights of the first 45 minutes.
1555: 'Hearts job attractive to Davies' says the BBC website. Could that be what the Jambos need?
1554: I must point out that the yawn came while the youngsters were still being assembled for action. There won't be any stifled yawns once the kids get going. It's gonna be manic!
1553: A member of the press, seated not far away from me, is seen to yawn.
1552: We've not seen much action on the pitch in the real thing, so the community team contrives some action with a welcome return of the schools half-time challenge.
45 + 1 mins: Sedge wins a corner, it gets whipped in from the right, but a Palace head clears and that's the end of the half.
45 mins: Just one minute of stoppage time to add. No bad thing, really.
44 mins: Hilly heads clear from a Watson corner.
43 mins: A bit of a lull. A few stoppages and a mis-placed cross since that last chance, and that's about it.
41 mins: Yellow card - Billy Jones goes in for a tackle, not quite as cleanly as the referee would have liked.
40 mins: Lonners denies Ifill with a good one handed stop, and the flag goes up for offside as Moses and Mawene battle for the loose ball.
36 mins: Quick thinking from a free kick at the other end - Brown tapping it to Carter while Palace regroup, and the restored midfielder's shot only narrowly clears the bar with everyone else but the keeper asleep.
35 mins: A chaotic set piece move ends when Moses' shot strikes a team mate in an offside position.
34 mins: I won't repeat what one of the gentlemen of the press just exclaimed as the wasp went for him. Or maybe he was just annoyed at the decision to give a free-kick against Mawene, for a foul on Ifill, right on the left hand edge of the box.
32 mins: Could have been another booking there - Fletcher getting away with it after taking out the twisting and turning Brown with a clumsy challenge from behind. A crude way to end a classy dribble.
31 mins: Yellow Card - Paul Ifill is also in trouble as he tries to turn Lee Hills' cross into the net with his hand.
29 mins: Lonergan saves well - low down, just to his right - after Carter accidentally lays the ball straight into Watson's path. The Eagles midfielder strikes it well, but Lonergan does even better.
26 mins: Good work down the left from Sedge and Whaley, but Speroni is out to claim as the latter makes the final delivery.
23 mins: Yellow Card - Moses has moved out to the left, and earns a booking for a sliding foul on his marker, Billy Jones.
22 mins: The game isn't much of a spectacle, but Chiller is doing his bit for the North End cause - blocking from Carl Fletcher as he unleashed a ferocious drive and then repeatedly heading clear in a spell of bombardment.
20 mins: North End are starting to come into this more, with the midfielders, Chris Brown, and Matt Hill doing most of the battling,
18 mins: Morrison continues to hobble.
17 mins: Clinton Morrison fouls Billy Jones and comes out of it a little worse for wear - paying plenty of attention to his thigh, which took the brunt of the impact.
16 mins: The game's taking a little while to get going, with both sides just sounding each other out at the moment. The South Londoners probably look the more threatening of the two - it must be their bright red stripes, an angry colour.
13 mins: Regular readers of this column will be aware that Deepdale is home to the hardiest wasp in England. The temperatures at the last few games have all been in single figures, but our resident wasp seems to show up at every Saturday game, regardless of conditions. Maybe he's a Geordie wasp that got stuck in Andy Carroll's luggage when he arrived?
12 mins: Wasp!
10 mins: Mawene has to block well from Clinton Morrison having initially touched Moses' cross straight into the dangerman's path.
8 mins: First shot of the game - Ben Watson hits a diagonal shot across goal for the visitors that narrowly misses the top corner. He screams in fury that he should have had a corner for an alleged deflection en route.
7 mins: There may not be many of them, but the Eagles fans are doing all the audible singing at the moment.
6 mins: I'm pleased to report that it looks as though it's a complete sell-out in the corporate section this afternoon. A good effort from the girls in commercial, with this being one of the less glamourous games we've had for a while.
2 mins: An interesting snippet (if you're statistically minded). Victor Moses is making his first start up front for Palace (he's been off the bench five times previously), and he'll be going head to head with PNE centre half Liam Chilvers - a far more experienced man who made his 200th career league appearance on Tuesday night.
1503: The game kicks off.
1502: The minute's silence was immaculately observed, and the inevitable roar that always follows such a spell of silence will hopefully act as a timely lift for the Preston players.
1501: We're about to stand now for the minute's silence for Tony Singleton.
1459: Just looking away to my left, I must say that I'm disappointed with the size of the Palace following. Presumably some may have been affected by the chaos on the railway today, but it's still a fairly minimal number for one of the division's bigger clubs, probably not much more than about 600, and that's only due to a major rush in the last couple of moments - there were only half of that five minutes ago.
1458: The tunnel extends, the players emerge, and the roar of the crowd engulfs Deepdale.
1457: Classical music alert - the teams must be in the tunnel.
1455: The pitch is getting better with every game at the moment, with the weather presumably making life more bearable for Pete Ashworth and his team of late. It's a fairly breexy day. but nowhere near as windy as it was overnight. The wind will be good for drying out the pitch (ahead of further expected rainfall in the next couple of days!), and it looks greener and flatter than it did on Tuesday night.
1452: Big progress on the stand front. The 'terracing' now extends 2/3 of the way along the touchline, towards the Town End. An extra couple of blocks have been added since Tuesday night. with the Deepdale skyline changing every time we set foot inside the stadium. Due to the installation of the roof, we can no longer see the shops on Deepdale Retail Park - part of the staple diet that used to be our view for so long from the back of the Sir Tom Finney Stand.
1450: As an aside to the comment about the portable goals, there's now a banner at each end of the ground that hangs on the back of the netting, warning fans about the dangers of flying balls that may hit them during the warm-up. PC health and safety garbage gone mad, as usual.
1449: The portable goals that are so integral to the warm up are being dismantled with military precision. Those lads have really got their vocation down to a fine art.
1448: As soon as I mention it, the players get bored of thumping the ball into an empty net, so various splinter groups head to the tunnel for last minute massages and changes of kit, that kind of thing.
1447: The Palace players have had enough of the warm-up, and head off to the tunnel, but PNE's players are still out there working hard.
1442: Matt's back, which is a relief because it's hard work keeping minute-by-minute up to date while broadcasting at the same time!
1440: I've been gone a little longer than expected, mainly because I've suddenly been dragged into the Whites World commentary position in Matt Morris' absence. Without further ado, here's the all-important team news,..
Richard Chaplow, sadly, is out due to his hamstring strain, while Callum Davidson is of course suspended for two games. There are no surprises in store when you look at their replacements - Darren Carter in the middle, with Matt Hill at left back making his 100th league appearance for PNE.
PNE: Lonergan, Jones, Mawene, Chilvers, Hill, Whaley, McKenna (capt), Carter, Sedgwick, Brown, Hawley. Subs: Chris Neal, Lewis Neal, St Ledger, Ormerod, Mellor.
Palace: Speroni, Butterfield, Hills, Lawrence, Hudson (capt), Derry, Fletcher, Watson, Morrison, Ifill, Moses. Subs: Freedman, Fonte, Hughes, Scannell, Robinson.
1359: The marketing team have just brought some chips into the office, which suddenly makes me feel very hungry. I'll briefly break off to grab some food of my own (having so far missed out on a lunch break) and will be back soon, hopefully with some team news.
1350: It's going to be quite a poignant afternoon for PNE fans, with Tony Singleton, a hero of the 1964 FA Cup run, having died overnight at his home in Los Angeles. Deepdale will be observing a minute's silence in his honour shortly before kick-off.
1345: Good afternoon North Enders, it's Adrian Ward on minute-by-minute duty this afternoon, with Matt Morris and Robert Urbani your hosts for the afternoon's coverage on Whites World. Jonathan Breeze will be along for full match commentary via World too, so you're in good company, as ever!
