North End defender Billy Jones is keeping his fingers crossed that there will be no more 'worldy' goals to deny the Lilywhites.
Preston were undone by a Chris Burke stunner at the Cardiff City Stadium at the weekend and that came on the back of an equally impressive strike from Blackpool's Billy Clarke in last week's 1-1 draw at Bloomfield Road. PNE have conceded a handful of other long distance goals this season and Jones believes that if the team can cut out those efforts then the team can get back on track.
Saturday's 1-0 defeat to Dave Jones' Bluebirds was one typical to North End's recent form. A fine performance overall but ultimately a disappointing result, it's time for those performances to start turning into points.
Billy, another decent performance on Saturday it's just disappointing we didn't get the result we wanted?
It was a good away team performance, it was a bit of a scrappy game, both teams cancelling each other out and it looked like it was always going to be one point each. But we've been done by another great strike and that has gone straight into the top corner. It can't be a coincidence that these great strikes keep on happening, we've watched the video, he gets half a yard when he goes inside and maybe as a back five and a team we need to tighten up on that.
It came out of the blue simply because before that point Lonners didn't really have a lot to do.
I think Lonners will tell you himself. A couple of games recently he has not had much to do other than pick out a 'worldy' strike. They were down to ten men at the time and we had started the second half really well, Parky had one cleared off the line from a corner and when they went down to ten men we were pushing for the goal ourselves. Maybe that's what has undone us, being too positive, even though they've gone down to ten men we still need to get as tight as we can.
At the moment of the goal we were really in our flow and pushing for a goal.
Yes, Gerrard went down and that seemed to stop our flow a little bit in the second half. I thought we had done well in the first half because usually that's the way it goes, we don't do well in the first half but we get much better in the second half. We were talking at half-time about how they were there for the taking but unfortunately it just seems to be our luck at the moment, maybe last year we would have come away with a 1-0 away win. We've just got to hope now with these two games we come away with six points.
Derby is next up, not an easy game but one which we have got to look for three points in?
We are at home, against a good Derby team, maybe we will be classed as favourites because we are at home but in this league everyone beats everyone. People might have classed us as favourites when Reading came here because they were really struggling and Derby are maybe the same, they are struggling but they got a good point at home against West Brom and they are going to be confident. They are a massive club with good individual players, therefore they should be a good team and it is going to be a hard game.
Derby's away form isn't the best but that last minute goal against West Brom might get them in good spirits for the trip up north?
West Brom are up there, they are a really good team with good away form, to get that point they are going to be confident. Maybe being away from home might settle their nerves a little bit. They are a massive club with big support and I imagine that fans would get on top of you at home so they might even be a little bit more relaxed which would help them. We have just got to make sure that we are on top of our game, organised to start off with, be patient and hopefully win the game.
Do we approach this game in the same manner we have done for the last few weeks?
I think so, though now it's a bit more of a must win because of the results we have had. We need these three points and that makes it a bigger game and I think that will raise our performance.
Two home games and six points could put us right back into the mix.
I think that's what this week is all about, back to back wins can get you straight back into the promotion Play-Off mix or it can get you out of the relegation fight. Everyone knows this league is all about back-to-back wins and with two home games we have got two big chances. If we go into the game on Tuesday and get three points then we are going to be very confident going into the weekend game. It's going to be a massive game on Tuesday and we have to be organised and go on to win from there.
It would be good to go into the festive period with two consecutive home wins.
Yes, if we can go into the tricky period with back-to-back home wins then that confidence is going to be coming throughout the team. The Christmas period gets busy and hectic and you can pick up fast. If we are going into that period full of confidence then who knows we could kick on again.
We just have to hope that there are no 'worldy' goals still to come from the opposition?
The Gaffer had addressed the back five, with videos and where we need to be a bit more organised and where we have been slacking a bit. I think we had been improving in games but obviously we are still losing games and as a back five we are not happy, we want clean sheets. That's what gives us our delight, goals make strikers happy and clean sheets make defenders happy but we haven't had enough of them this year so as a back five we are disappointed. We know that if we had got a clean sheet on Saturday then we would have earned a point and if you get a clean sheet every game you are guaranteed a point. We need more clean sheets as a back five but that's also as an 11, being organised and defending as a team.
