‘It just looked’ – Paul Heckingbottom delivers honest assessment of Preston North End’s loss to Coventry City..
PNE were beaten 2-1 by the Sky Blues on Saturday afternoon
Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom had no complaints after his side were beaten 2-1 by Coventry City on Saturday.
The Lilywhites fell behind on the half-hour mark as Jack Rudoni headed home and Bobby Thomas doubled the home side’s lead seven minutes later, from a corner.
It looked as though Frank Lampard’s side – who are pushing for a play-off place – were going to cruise to victory. PNE substitute Will Keane did pop up with a goal on 82 minutes to set up a nervy finish though.
Post-match, Heckingbottom said: “We were second best for large parts. I felt five minutes before their first goal, I could feel it coming and you’re thinking ‘right, we need to change something here’. But before that, pretty even game in terms of our threat and their threat. Our problem was when we got in behind them the final pass was missing which meant, as we speak about a lot, we didn’t get the opportunities and didn’t get the goal.
“From that moment and from the goal onwards, I felt we were second best for large portions. But if we had got something out of the game it just would have been the spirit and the character of the players. The longer you stay in the game you give yourself that fighting chance – you can force the issue at the end. The changes at half-time were just to change shape; two bodies on the top line. Even when we had spells in the first half keeping the ball, we lacked penetration and threat.
“We turned down too many opportunities to play forwards, get in behind. But to be fair, we made the changes at half-time and it was still the 79th minute before we played the first quality pass down the side and got in behind. Then on the second pass, the second time we do that, we score and then all of a sudden we can make it difficult for them. So yeah, that’s a disappointing thing but there were too many not at the level where we’ve been playing today, which made it difficult.
