Preston North End boss Alan Irvine heaped the praise on last-minute goalscorer Darren Carter for his wonder goal which claimed all three points in the crucial Coca-Cola Championship clash at the Walkers Stadium.

Carter picked up the ball midway into the Leicester half and danced around three would be challengers before unleashing an unstoppable shot into the roof of the net from 25-yards to secure North End's first Tuesday night away win since October 2006.

"It was a fantastic goal," the Gaffer said in his post-match press conference.

"A terrific strike and we know he is able to do that because he practises in training and he does it on a fairly regular basis. He's had a few in recent weeks where he has not quite caught them right but that one he certainly did and it was unstoppable."

The Lilywhites looked to have battled their way to another well deserved point on the road against Ian Holloway's men at the Walkers Stadium, lady luck smiled on PNE as the Foxes had two goals chalked off in normal time for offside but Leicester failed to register a shot on target throughout the 90 minutes and the win now puts them level with the Foxes.

Irvine said: "A point would have been better than no points but at this stage of the season we need to be picking up as many three points as we possibly can. It's a big three points because of how close we are to Leicester and other clubs, Leicester got away from us at the weekend, we were disappointed with what we did.

"The most important thing is that it is from now until the end of the season, it's about what we do, if we can pick up enough points then we'll not worry about everyone else. Ideally it's about us getting the target that we need and then we will see what happens and where that takes us to."

That target was 54 points or seven wins, Irvine now has five more wins left to get and though he admits that PNE might not actually need the full 54 points for survival, he would love to achieve that target before the last game of the season.

"I said a number of weeks ago that I would breath a lot easier if we managed to get to 54 points as soon as possible. I'm not saying that we neccessarily need 54 points because you just have to look at the results week-in-week-out, you see teams picking up points where you don't expect them to.

"I don't know what the final total will be but if you look back over the last five years then 54 points would certainly see you safe. If we can get that before the end of the season then that would be fantastic and I will breath an awful lot easier."

North End moved above Coventry City and closer to a whole host of teams in the table but the Gaffer is under no illusions as to the task still ahead, a match at Charlton on Saturday is the next massive match.

"Clearly we have got to play at our best and make sure that we are always ready for every game that is going to come our way, be ready for every challenge, we can't afford to relax. I felt as if we maybe took it for granted that we were going to win at the weekend and we can't afford to do that.

"We need to know that we have to be virtually at our best in order to win games," added the Scotsman.