'North End must get the basics much better' - Bayes
· Yahoo Sports
"A soft touch defending our box" was the verdict of Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom. He was absolutely spot on.
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His team didn't show anywhere near enough to beat an Oxford side who thoroughly deserved to win at Deepdale on Friday night and could have scored more.
For the time being, it lifted them out of the relegation zone after back-to-back wins in the space of six days.
On New Year's Day, North End brushed aside Sheffield Wednesday 3-0, and a play-off challenge looked on.
They followed it up with a win at Bristol City, and the automatic promotion places didn't look a million miles away.
Fast forward 10 league games and six defeats, three draws, and one win later, it looks like a mid-table finish at best.
The question is, what has gone wrong over the last 10 games?
To me, it's not just one thing.
The form of the players isn't what it was earlier in the season; there was a lot of evidence of that against Oxford. We're not just talking one or two players.
The loss of goalkeeper Daniel Iversen to injury. The points per game ratio with him in the side is so much better than it is when he's missing.
That's indisputable but also a touch unfair on Dai Cornell, who hasn't been anything like solely responsible for the goals that have been going past him.
Harrison Armstrong's loan from Everton has expired. It's pretty clear that Armstrong is a real talent, a Premier League player and any Championship club would miss him. But he was only on the winning side six times in a North End shirt.
And the much-maligned pitch will also take a share of the blame.
They have to do better on it. Hull, Derby, Wigan, Millwall and now Oxford have all shown that it's more than possible to produce winning performances on a surface where the ball doesn't run particularly true.
The players must rise to the challenge in the next two games, which are among the toughest on the road.
Trips to Coventry and Norwich would test any team at this level right now.
It's getting the basics so much better; that will be a really good start. Get back to being the North End team that impressed so much earlier this campaign.
"Let's focus on being a team that no one wants to play against because a manager has not said that to me in a while," was a telling line from Heckingbottom after this one.