Saturday saw the return of the Sky Bet Championship after a 3-month long wait, but it’s fair to say, from a North End point of view, it could have started better.
Despite dominating the game and having the majority of possession throughout, Luton managed to steal a point late on through Callum McManaman who hit one into the top left corner from outside the box, a good finish to be fair. The point leaves us in sixth but has given Blackburn Rovers and a number of other teams the opportunity to start to close the already small gap on us and put real pressure on us as we go into our next game in the early kick-off at home to Cardiff City.
Ultimately though, for the returning weekend of Championship football, the first result for North End has to be considered two points dropped. There was a couple of standout performances in what was quite an average display from North End on the day, and hopefully, we can perform much better next time out.
Declan Rudd
After signing his new 3-year deal over the lockdown period, Rudd had quite a solid performance for me. He commanded his box well, came for crosses and punched where appropriate, and even came out to act as a sweeper when needed.
The goal was a very good finish from the former Wigan man, Callum McManaman which Rudd could have done nothing about. For me, he had a relatively decent game without being troubled too much overall.
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Rating – 7
Alan Browne
Playing out of position but one the Irishman is becoming familiar with, I thought Browne did a decent job at right-back.
Not much got down Luton’s left and Browne also helped get forward to work with Tom Barkhuizen when building attacks which did work well. Playing out of position is never easy and when he later got moved into his normal midfield it was always going to be difficult to get into the game and make a difference.
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Rating – 7
Patrick Bauer Bauer for me is usually one of our most influential players but yesterday he seemed quite discomforted. Whether it was the physical presence of James Collins I’m not too sure but he didn’t seem as confident as usual.
Obviously the conditions would have taken time to adjust to, likewise for all the players, but Bauer seemed to be quite poor with heading the ball, usually with it going out of play or going straight back to the home side when he had time to take it down.
It’s probably the first game where I’ve ever criticised Bauer’s performance, but I didn’t feel like he played like we know he can do yesterday.
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Rating – 6
Ben Davies
Ben is another player who for me had an off day. He wasn’t up to his usual standard of switching the play with his range of passing and struggled to play his usual game. Potentially that was down to Luton playing narrow which stopped Davies playing those driven passes into the midfield as the option simply wasn’t there.
Defensively though, he did his job but he just wasn’t the player he usually is. Again though, I think it’s important to recognise the circumstances which would have taken time to adjust to, but with not many games left, we need to adjust now if we stand a chance of getting top 6.
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Rating – 6
Andrew Hughes
Hughes proved difficult to beat down that side but with the majority of Luton’s play going through the middle with their narrow formation, he had a relatively quiet game.
With Luton playing narrow, that would have allowed to safety venture forward which he didn’t do too often but overall an average performance without doing many things wrong.
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Rating – 6
Ben Pearson
Pearo had a solid game for me providing good coverage for the defence in what was a game that he had to stay disciplined. He managed to escape getting a caution despite a slight encounter with Luton’s James Collins.
I thought he kept the ball well but sometimes didn’t play the pass quick enough which slowed down the pace of the attack and allowed Luton’s midfield to get back in and get organised. One thing we had with our front three yesterday was pace and slowing down attacks like Pearson occasionally did really stopped us from utilising that.
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Rating – 6
Paul Gallagher
My man of the match yesterday was Paul Gallagher. I thought he controlled the game really well for us and I think we lost our control of the game when he came off and Neil had a reshuffle which I don’t believe really needed to happen.
He moved Alan Browne into midfield and brought on Darnell Fisher at right-back which I think unsettled us quite a lot. Gally was playing a lot of passes through and attempting to switch the play which is a great asset to him and us and helped build our attacks and gather a bit of momentum.
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Rating – 8
Tom Barkhuizen
Barky was another player who for me had a relatively quiet game. He certainly seemed to struggle to get past their left-back Dan Potts and when he did, Luton’s on-loan centre half, Cameron Carter-Vickers, covered really well to snuff out any danger that Barkhuizen could have posed.
Barkhuizen did set up Scott Sinclair with a good, well-weighted pass into the former Celtic man to put us 1-0 up, but apart from the assist, he didn’t do too much else before being replaced for Billy Bodin late on.
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Rating – 7
Daniel Johnson
DJ, who has been so influential this season in that more advanced role, didn’t really perform for me. He did attempt to link up play but I feel like he really wasn’t involved for the majority of the game and became completely non-effective.
I was quite surprised he wasn’t replaced earlier and I was shocked how Josh Harrop didn’t get on the pitch at all in that position, but all in all a poor performance for me from DJ which hasn’t occurred very often this season for the number 11.
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Rating – 6
Scott Sinclair
One of a handful of good performances on Saturday was Scott Sinclair. Although he wasn’t involved too greatly, when he was he looked dangerous and certainly had the Luton defenders back-tracking.
He took his goal very well cutting in from the left-hand side to slot past Sluga into the bottom right corner to give North End the lead at Kenilworth Road. I think we could see a lot more of Sinclair’s calm finishing and I highly doubt that will be his only goal in the remaining 8 games of the season.
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Rating – 8
Sean Maguire
I was really hoping Maguire would come back looking more like the player we know he can be after this lockdown period. We know he can be a poacher and has bags of goals if he’s in the right place, but Saturday’s display said something very different.
Again he was well beaten physically, constantly losing out in the individual battles. He missed a good chance after getting a rebound which he tried to chip over the keeper from extremely close range and inadvertently gave Luton a goal kick and overall just had a bad day.
I don’t think he can play the striker role in this division as I simply don’t think he’s strong and physical enough and personally I would rather see Barkhuizen or Sinclair play up top with Maguire starting out wide where he can be more influential.
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Rating – 5
Substitutes
David Nugent
Nugent came on in the 65th minute to replace Seani Maguire and didn’t have much more of an impact. He did some good running putting the Luton defence under some good pressure but it all came to non-effect.
He lost the ball on a number of occasions despite only coming on with 25 minutes to go, and seemed to take a while to adjust to the pace of the game if it all. I do think he can hold the ball up well against certain opposition but Luton certainly isn’t one with them being such a big team.
Overall just didn’t make good enough use of the ball and lost it in key areas by either misplaced passes or just being too slow and being dispossessed.
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Rating – 5
Brad Potts
Potts replaced the goal scorer Sinclair late on in the 78th minute and didn’t have any sort of impact. Did the running needed but didn’t really get his foot on the ball as North End began to start being overrun as Luton looked for an equaliser.
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Rating – 5
Darnell Fisher
Came on as part of a double substitution with Brad Potts for Paul Gallagher with Alan Browne moving into the midfield. I personally thought this was a poor decision from Neil who didn’t need to change the back four who had looked comfortable all afternoon and wasn’t put under any real danger.
Fisher likes to push forward and join the attack when possible which wasn’t what we really needed with 10 minutes or so to go and that’s why I consider it to be a poor change from Neil where fresh legs didn’t really seem needed.
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Rating – 6
Jayden Stockley & Billy Bodin
Both came on in the 92nd minute to replace Tom Barkhuizen and Daniel Johnson to try and grab a goal late on in added time but didn’t get enough time to have any sort of impact.
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Rating – N/A
So in conclusion, in a game that we dominated for the majority, even whilst being nowhere near our best, we dropped a huge two points in what would have been a massive 3 points for us in the play-off race. Cardiff now becomes a massive game.
Here are two podcasts worth listening to from the lads on the pod.
From the Finney with Kieran Maguire.
From the Finney with Mark Lawrenson.
