After things had looked a bit gloomy at the the break we stormed to a great 3-0 win with more quality goals and Blackburn made a fantastic comeback to defeat Millwall and help us get that dreamed of play-off spot.
BEFORE
This day has been a long time coming but I'm still confident that we'll get the win we need. Whether the other results go our way, is a different matter and it's no doubt going to be a roller-coaster ride of an afternoon. I'm glad we're not playing at home as I wouldn't feel at all confident about getting a win at the SoL I feel like Nick Barnes as I've got my pre-match facts (League Table and Fixtures) all on one sheet of paper so I can compute the various permutations as we go along. As I and many of us have said before, I'd have been happy just to consolidate our position in this league and wouldn't have been disappointed if we didn't go up but of course now I'd love us to and think we have absolutely nothing to lose and plenty to gain by doing so. I haven't heard any team-news yet but I'm sure that whoever plays they'll put in a strong performance. I'm in London and will be listening to the match on SAFSEE and my match prediction is a 3-1 win.
I got the team-news just after 2.00 and there were no changes at all to the starting line-up and subs from the Watford game. To pass the time I looked at my match report for the Preston home game back in early October and no wonder I'd forgotten it as it was a turgid goalless draw. I was sure that this afternoon's affair would be anything but that.
THE MATCH
When I got SAFSEE online the atmosphere was sounding lively with over six thousand of our fans there, quite a few of whom were in front of commentators Barnes and Benno. We were playing in our light blue away strip. The National Anthem was played and I could hear many fans joining in but no boos. There was a late change for Preston at the back with Bauer replacing Hughes, who must have been injured in the warm-up.
Patterson had to be on his toes in the opening minutes as Preston did most of the pressing with Fernandez and Cannon having a lot of the ball. Storey got a yellow in the fourth minute for a foul and that was all to the good for us. A deflected McCann shot gave Preston the first corner of the match and no doubt Preston will have enjoyed watching the video of Watford's two goals from corners. We cleared it but next thing Duncan Watmore put Millwall ahead in the seventh minute and that wasn't good news at all. We hardly got into the Preston half in the opening ten minutes but it was the same story against West Brom and that turned out well enough. Amad was tripped just outside their box and Roberts' kick took a deflection for our first corner. It produced another corner and eventually a throw to us. By the twentieth minute we'd definitely got into the match a lot more but it remained goalless and then the great news came over that Blackburn had equalised against Millwall. Almost immediately Coventry took the lead against Boro and that wiped the smile off my face.
Benno was shouting for a penalty for us but referee Robert Madley probably thought that Gelhardt had gone down too easily. Woodman in goal did well to tip a Roberts shot round the post and the subsequent corner was headed clear. O'Nien was down injured for a while around the half-hour mark but thankfully recovered. Our fans had been making all the noise so far but there was some bad news as Millwall went 2-1 ahead. It sounded like we were going to go behind as Delap broke through alone but he somehow shot wide of the post with only Patto to beat. Next thing Millwall went 3-1 up and from what I'd heard so far I couldn't see Blackburn getting two more goals. We won another corner when Bauer blocked an Amad shot but again we didn't make anything of it. With a few minutes on the clock Woodman made another good stop when he dived to stop Gelhardt scoring. Ref Madley was annoying both sets of fans and the commentators with his habit of waiting a long time to blow his whistle. Three minutes of added-time were announced but it remained 0-0 at the break. Just as the whistle went great news came through that Boro had got an equaliser and that put a much rosier hue on proceedings. A great deal could happen in forty-five minutes of course.
As I waited for the second-half to begin I naturally mused on what lay ahead. A goal for us and one for Boro without replies would get us into the play-offs unless Blackburn suddenly decided to play a stormer, which seemed very unlikely. Hopefully Pritchard and Michut would be on around the hour-mark to do the job for us. We didn't have to wait that long for Pritchard to come on as he'd replaced the injured Cirkin as we kicked off again. Benno remained confident that Boro were going to win. In the early minutes a Neil shot went just wide of the post and had our fans chanting. Surprisingly in the fifty-first minute Blackburn pulled another goal back to add to the mix of possibilities. Benno was getting so excited that I kept thinking we'd scored and the latest of these was an Ekwah effort that was blocked. “Sundland till I die!” was echoing round the ground loudly. West Brom had taken a 2-1 lead against Swansea and had temporarily snuck above us but in the fifty-fourth minute Amad hit an exquisite shot into the top left corner to put us in the lead and send our fans wild.
Preston weren't giving up by any means and soon Patto had to make a great save from Bauer to keep us ahead. Benno was getting a bit confused with all the maths involved as the scores kept changing and I was making rapid alterations to my charts. A goal for Boro or an equaliser from Blackburn would do it as long as we stayed ahead. Benno went apeshit in the sixty-first minute when Pritchard hit a shot from outside the box into the bottom left corner to put us 2-0 up. Almost immediately news came through that Blackburn had got a third to equalise at the Den and we were in a play-off spot...at least for a while. In the sixty-fifth minute Clarke curled a shot into the corner from outside the box to make it 3-0 and the result was then surely beyond doubt. Anderson replaced Gooch and the added height would do us no harm. So, we'd done all we could do and it was in the lap of the gods whether the other results would go our way.
Twenty minutes to go and it sounded like Boro had upped their game and were having much the better of things against Coventry. I was rooting for them, on a strictly temporary basis naturally. Gelhardt was replaced by Michut in the seventy-second minute and he'd played his part. Blackburn, God love them, were in the ascendency against Millwall and had hit the woodwork a couple of times. Their game was several minutes ahead of ours as things had worked out so, added-time willing, we'd know before our match was finished whether we'd made it or not. Next thing the commentator at the Millwall game announced, “Breathe everybody! Breathe!” before announcing that Blackburn had taken a 4-3 lead. The news had gone round Deepdale like wildfire and our fans' jubilation was coming over very loud and clear. Four minutes of injury-time were announced at the Den but barring miracles, and Blackburn had already cornered that market surely, Millwall weren't going to win. Four minutes added-time were announced for our game too but my attention had largely strayed elsewhere. Soon enough the Millwall game ended 3-4 and we'd done it. Our fans were singing, “We're going to Wem-ber-ley!” as the final whistle went and we'd done it.
