Paul Heckingbottom, the Preston North End’s manager, was the first to admit that his side did not do enough to warrant a victory over Derby County.
After the resumption of action following the international break, it was The lilywhites who nose ahead as Sam Greenwood, on loan from Leeds United puts the ball into the back of the net with a fine header from an assist from Andrew Hughes. But the happiness was short-lived as Derby County pulled parity in the 45th minute by Jerry Yates who made a diving header into the bottom right corner of Freddie Woodman’s net.
Heckingbottom sighed as he discussed the second half which was filled with little action and few goalscoring chances for both teams. Looking at the results, he said: “We were not able to do enough that would have helped us to clinch the victory we wanted.” All fans must have anticipated this match would be a dull one, as it completed the anticipated script. Derby was very tricky, organized and had a good ability to frustrate us throughout the match. Their set-pieces are deemed to be very important when they got one back soon after this, we scored.
Heckingbottom was clearly annoyed that Woodman had not had to make any difficult saves for a goal to be conceded and stressed the importance of the team not conceding during the time that they are going through an out of form streak. He pointed out that Emil Riis was isolated upfront most of the time and figured out efforts to involve Ledo and Ali McCann in the dangerous zones were difficult.
Praising Derby for coming with a tactical plan to frustrate them out of the match, Heckingbottom congratulated his defenders while pointing to the opportunities missed. He insisted on using subs properly and making clear opportunities; something they failed to do in the match.
With no breakthrough at the end of the game, Heckingbottom agreed that the team had to be wiser in the approach and more clinical in the approach of finding the next goal in subsequent games.
Preston’s manager also added that Mads Frokjaer trained on Friday after he had hamstring problems after the Portsmouth match. Heckingbottom brought Ben Whiteman, Ali McCann, and Ryan Ledson in the middle of midfield to give a tough fight to Derby. This midfield three was new for PNE, the intention was to get dominance in the game and in-front of man marking defensive teams.
Heckingbottom said that the system did not work for wingers Josh Bowler and Jeppe Okkels because he believed a different formation would be more effective in creating activity in both the midfield and striking areas of the pitch.