The manner of North End's 3-0 victory at Christie Park on Saturday pleased Manager Alan Irvine, although he admitted that his side could have been more clinical in the final third.

Preston started the game in ferocious fashion, scoring all three of their goals inside the opening half hour of the game.

And PNE's high levels of fitness meant that they continued to create a number of opportunities throughout the entirety of the 90 minutes without actually adding to the tally.

Irvine wasn't too concerned however as he expects his team's finishing to improve over the coming weeks.

He told PNE.Com: "I thought we started the game really well and played well throughout the first half. You know what's coming at half-time, obviously it's difficult for the lads because they are getting a lot of praise, they feel good about themselves and it's difficult to get back up to that level again.

"I thought we started a bit shakily and a bit slowly in the second half. We then made a lot of changes and I had told the players in advance that I was to give the starting eleven about 60 minutes, but we will reverse that for the Everton game.

"Obviously so many substitutions disrupted the flow of the game but we still created chances and the one disappointing thing about Saturday was that we didn't take a lot more of the chances we created.

"It should have been more but we've only recently started working on crossing and finishing and we've not actually done any full-on shooting sessions yet."