Westley Gets One Over Preston

The Preston run in the FA Cup is over for another year after the third round defeat to Peterborough at London Road on Saturday.

Goals, early in each half, were enough to end the Preston FA Cup involvement for another year as Peterborough caused an upset with a two-nil win.

Martin Samuelsen had Graham Westley’s side ahead early on from 25-yards with that lead taken into the break. In demand, according to reports, Conor Washington headed in the second early in the second half to see former Preston boss Westley get one over PNE.

The closest Preston went to scoring came when Joe Garner was denied by the post with Eoin Doyle seeing Ben Alnwick pull off a save and Tom Clarke having a header cleared off the line. Chris Kirkland kept PNE in the game at one-down when he made a fine save to deny Harry Beautyman.

These were the other results.

Saturday 9th January 2016
Wycombe 1-1 Aston Villa
Arsenal 3-1 Sunderland
Birmingham 1-2 Bournemouth
Brentford 0-1 Walsall
Bury 0-0 Bradford
Colchester 2-1 Charlton
Doncaster 1-2 Stoke
Eastleigh 1-1 Bolton
Everton 2-0 Dag & Red
Hartlepool 1-2 Derby
Huddersfield 2-2 Reading
Hull 1-0 Brighton
Ipswich 2-2 Portsmouth
Leeds 2-0 Rotherham
Middlesbrough 1-2 Burnley
Newport P-P Blackburn
Northampton 2-2 MK Dons
Norwich 0-3 Man City
Nottm Forest 1-0 QPR
Peterborough 2-0 Preston
Sheff Wed 2-1 Fulham
Southampton 1-2 Crystal Palace
Watford 1-0 Newcastle
West Brom 2-2 Bristol City
West Ham 1-0 Wolves
Man Utd 1-0 Sheff Utd

Sunday 10th January 2016
Oxford Utd 3-2 Swansea
Carlisle 2-2 Yeovil
Chelsea 2-0 Scunthorpe

These games are to played.

Tottenham v Leicester 16:00
Cardiff v Shrewsbury 18:00

Some interesting results (so far), with some upsets, but on the whole those expected to go through did go through or at least remained in the competition! Well, I would say anyway.

But the stand out results, with them causing upsets to progress, have to be the wins for Walsall, Colchester and Peterborough beating Brentford (Bees boss Dean Smith’s former side) one-nil, Charlton two-one and Preston two-nil respectively, to put all of the League 1 side through against the Championship sides to see them into the next round keep those cup dreams alive.

The win of the round, (so far) has to be the three-two win for League 2 side over Swansea at the Kassam Stadium, which is almost certainly the win of the round!

Mentions have to go to Wycombe for holding struggling Premier League side Aston Villa to a one-one draw at Adams Park with Eastleigh (with the game eventually going ahead after a number of pitch inspections) denied a win by a late Bolton equaliser in a one-one draw.

Portsmouth who were also within a couple of minutes of beating Ipswich who grabbed a two-two draw late on at Portman Road with League 2 promotion rivals Northampton also involved in a two-all draw with another Championship side MK Dons with one more two-two draw seeing a dramatic injury-time goal from West Brom denying struggling Championship side Bristol City a win over the Premier League side.

Following the defeat we know our name isn’t going to be in the pot for the next round so it’ll be a case of ‘concentrating on the league!’