Watch out Erling Haaland — Preston North End are catching up. One Twitter account has been gaining popularity amid Preston’s run of six 0-0 draws this season which left them with the simultaneous honour and dishonour of having the Championship’s best defence and worst attack.
The Twitter account is called ‘Erling Haaland vs Preston North End’ and records how many goals each has scored week by week.
On Saturday, Preston took their tally to seven goals in 13 Championship games, adding three in an unexpectedly entertaining win against Norwich City. Haaland added one in Manchester City’s victory over Southampton, taking his total to 15 goals in nine Premier League games.
So it’s 15-7 to Haaland in this head-to-head, though Preston can take solace in the fact that the Norwegian has also outscored 49 other teams in England’s top four divisions.
There is a long way to go for Preston to overtake Haaland, but manager Ryan Lowe hopes Saturday’s 3-2 win will end the fascination with his side’s bizarre statistics.
‘I hope you’ll all stop talking about it,’ Lowe said afterwards, smiling.
Preston’s record of having scored four goals and conceded four was the reason I was sent to Norwich with this directive: find out if it is true they are the most boring team in football.
That has been the accusation levelled at Preston of late and it isn’t as if Lowe is a manager known for his pragmatism. In 2018-19, Bury finished as the top scorers in League Two under his guidance. In 2019-20, his Plymouth side were the third-top scorers in the same division.
Given that, and the fact Lowe himself was a striker who scored more than 200 times across the lower echelons of English football, you expect more from this team.
Alice Joan Rowland grew up supporting Preston throughout the golden era of Sir Tom Finney. ‘Our Tom,’ she affectionately calls him. Alice is 90 years old now. A ‘Lancashire lass’, in her own words, she was easy to contact for this piece — because she’s my lovely little nana.
Each week she watches Jeff Stelling on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday, looking out for Preston. Rarely have they popped up on the vidiprinter. ‘It’s such a shame,’ she said. That changed on Saturday. In the press room prior to kick-off, two photographers were discussing which end they should park themselves for the first half. In other words, should they try to capture Norwich scoring or Preston? ‘Does it matter?’ said one. ‘It’ll finish 0-0 anyway.’
How wrong he was. Within two minutes, Norwich had the lead, Preston’s defence looking unusually flimsy as Joshua Sargent’s strike beat Freddie Woodman.
Preston recovered from conceding their first away goal of the season with Emil Riis, the Denmark Under 21 striker, scoring twice — one a header and the other a first-time finish after the visitors won the ball high up the pitch.
Gabriel Sara thought he had secured a point for Norwich and taken them top of the Championship when he equalised in the 76th minute.
But a near-post finish from Troy Parrott, the forward on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, secured Preston an unlikely win. The only sour note was an injury in the celebration, with the 20-year-old’s hamstring seemingly going and forcing him to hobble off.
Lowe afterwards revealed Preston won despite a sickness bug going through the camp. Sick as a Parrott? Not after this winner from the Tottenham loanee.
It was an afternoon of end-to-end action in Norwich and anything but dull.
Who is football’s most boring team to watch? In Spain, they may say Burgos, who are fifth in the second division and yet to concede after six 0-0 draws in their opening nine games.
Coincidentally, three of Burgos’s five goals scored this season came in an unexpected 3-0 win against top-of-the-table con Saturday. But Lowe will hope his club exit that conversation after this. Boring Preston? Behave.