Paul Simpson

yeah definitely and and there was a few times as well i mean we didn't really capitalize on it but some of those long diagonal balls wouldn't quite reach out your boy but we'd put would give them throw-ins pretty much right by the corner flag yeah and teams hate having to do that because you know if you mess it up you're letting the opposition in on goal.

It's why, obviously, under Paul Simpson, straight from kick-off, we used to just punt it straight out next to the corner flag.

Yeah,

but also, if we win a throw-in in that

Imagine now a team going straight up from League 1 and getting to the playoff final.

the playoff final of the championship we obviously lost 3-0 to Bolton um and then we flirted with the playoffs again the season after I think we would have got the playoffs had David Moyes not departed forever because we was there there I think we took it to the final day of the season we had a few mid-table seasons under Craig Brown and then again we went again under Billy Davis um with Alexander um key part of that team so yeah before Paul Simpson um got rid of him but It's a good story, and it's a good story, Alexander, coming back, and hopefully it works out.

We're going to hear from Critch in a second, but we'll read out a few comments.

North End Twitter, as positive as ever, I'm sure.

You just end up...

Steve McClanahan is such an impressive coach and Simmo as well, Paul Simpson.

really, really good tactically and how to set us up, how to play, how we can do well against the opponents and stuff like that.

And that sort of day, that 5-0 game, it seemed like everything that we did just went right for us.

But yeah, it's, it's a, it's a catastrophic place for us to be especially given, you know, where they were when they took over and the amount of money that's been spent.

It's not like we were in the position we were before they came in, before Paul Simpson came back to the club where-

Mm

... we were on the verge of going down and, you know, looks like a club who were more suited financially to that level than the level that we were at at the time.

Like, I think it was after the Forest Green game or something, and I was like-

Mm

... we had that one, one little bit of joy, that lovely time under Paul Simpson where we got promoted, and we've just been completely punished because of it.

Like, we're not allowed to have nice things- [laughs]

Graham Alexander, there's a bit of romance to it in there.

Graham Alexander, look, whether or not we think there's better options out there, if you're using your head, heart-wise, if Graham Alexander becomes the manager of North End, you know what I mean? I'd say, look, he left, he was forced to leave North End when Paul Simpson was manager to Burnley.

He ended up getting promoted with Burnley, played Premier League football there.

So it would be somewhat poetic if he came back and got promoted to the Premier League, but obviously getting promoted to the Premier League as a Preston fan does seem like a bit of a pipe dream, but Anyway, we'll have a look what some of the North End fans thought of this.

I was there in 2008.

We were 2-0 up, right? 2-0 up.

I think Neil Mellor made it 2-0. gareth ainsworth came on a sub and they got two goals in injury time to make it 2-2 bad memories all off this road you know i'm looking at when paul simpson was manager right and i know i'm babbling here but hey there's not much news it's a bit of north end audio in your ears we can go off on a tangent can't we right went to that 2006 2007 season when simpson was manager right End of March, I think we went to Leeds away on the Friday night, okay? I went to all three of these away games, right? The Friday night we played Leeds away.

If we win that game, we're second, okay? This is the last weekend in March, I think, okay? And we go to Leeds, we go 1-0 up early on.