The Preston Chronicle
Squad18 Jan 2044
A knee injury of the worst kind for Stephen Harris
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Preston lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad18 Jan 2044
Michael Robinson takes the match ball home
4 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match16 Jan 2044
Bolton Wanderers punish Preston for switching off
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Michael Robinson will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Preston escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Market18 Jan 2044
Michele De Rossi is on his way
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Preston is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom18 Jan 2044
Michele De Rossi has agreed to leave Preston for nothing
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Match16 Jan 2044
Still nobody has beaten Preston
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad18 Jan 2044
Tempers go at Preston
Samuel Alves was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad18 Jan 2044
Thierry Small falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings18 Jan 2044
Michael Robinson was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.30. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
- Match Honours even between Preston and Bolton Wanderers
- Market Still no ink between Preston and David Murphy
- Player ratings Javier Sosa runs at them all day