As everything that the club does at the moment has to remind you that Elt is playing a concert next year and the tickets go on sale on Monday I hope they appreciate I managed to wangle one of his lesser known hits into the blog title.
But I make no apologies for it because today we truly did believe, in a way that, as Malky correctly pointed out, exactly a week ago at the Hawthorns we really didn't. The very obvious difference today was Heidar who just gives us that extra bit of Mooney-esque bite, and by us I don't just mean the team but all of us. His presence lifts the whole place and when he scored after 9 minutes we all believed that we could beat an average looking Preston side, and it was very satisfying that we did.
We played some lovely passing football that a year ago it would've been impossible for us to pull off. The second goal was made by a wonderful bit of skill from Lansbury and finished off by Cleverley. It was as good as anything seen during the Judas era.
What was really great about today though was the second half. Preston were much much better than they were in the first half. They'd obviously had a bit of a rollicking at half time and came out looking determined to try and nick a goal that would then give them a way back in. But our back four held very firm and didn't let Preston through, even though they had Jon 'Giant Haystacks' Parkin leading the line. Scott Loach was brilliant and made a fine save from Parkin in injury time to ensure we didn't have a nervy finale.
An often sung song last week at West Brom was 'We always get shit refs'. I'm surprised we'd didn't have a reprise this afternoon as Mr K Wright was woeful. He was overly fussy at times when he didn't need to be, but ridiculously lenient when action was required. His complete lack of authority really showed when we had a free kick just outside the Preston box in the second half. He asked the wall to move back from its position of about seven yards from the ball and when they didn't respond he just walked away. He was rubbish and should be sent back to ref kids and get their respect before being unleashed on the Championship again. If Elton wants to add some chants into his set for May I reckon this is should be top of the list because, frustratingly, its so true.
