Preston NE sit bottom of Championship on 4 points

Ten games, one win, one draw, eight defeats. Preston NE are bottom of Championship on 4 points, and the gap to safety is 4.

The team directly above them, Burnley, have 8 points from the same 10 matches. That is the whole margin: four points, earned or lost across a season that has barely started.

The damage is at both ends. Preston NE have scored 8 and conceded 20, a goal difference of -12. Their form over the last five reads L, L, D, L, L — two defeats in a row, and no win since the opening weeks.

Split it by venue and it gets stranger. At home: 4 wins, 3 draws, 10 losses. Away: 3, 5, 10. Two different teams, neither of them good enough.

Compare Burnley. They have won once all season, just like Preston NE. But 5 draws from 10 matches have kept them afloat, and their goal difference of -4 is twelve better. One club turns defeats into draws. The other does not.

At the top, nobody is waiting. Swansea lead on 23 points with a goal difference of +9, Middlesbrough are second on 21, and West Ham sit third on 19 with +17. The leading scorer in the division is William Lankshear of Middlesbrough on 8, ahead of Cyle Larin of Southampton on 7.

So what is left for Preston NE? Four points is not a chasm in October. But a side conceding 20 in 10 games has to fix the defence before the gap becomes arithmetic rather than irritating.

Two defeats in a row is a run. Ten games is a pattern. And the table does not care which one you call it.