Alan Irvine's side may have been super starters in terms of their Championship results prior to the Glanford Park away day, but he had them down as slow starters for this latest battle; the root of their downfall in his view.
Going 3-0 down proved too big a mountain to overcome in the famously flat county of Lincolnshire, and the boss felt that this was probably about as disappointing a performance as he'd seen this season - reflected in the result. He told PNE Player:
"It was a poor performance overall. We didn't really turn up at the start of the game; we did have a good chance to go 1-0 up at the start and that could have changed things, but we didn't compete at the same tempo as Scunthorpe.
"They set a very fast tempo, putting balls in behind us, and we didn't cope very well with them. I was disappointed with how we went about the opening 20 minutes of the game before starting to get better, and ironically their second goal came just as it looked as though we were starting to get on top.
"It was obviously an important goal, it was a blow for us, but even at half-time I still said to the players that I felt we could get something and come back into the game - I think they believed that as well.
"Obviously the third goal, which was a poor goal, made life extremely difficult for us, and we got one goal back but we really kind of huffed and puffed from there. We were obviously the dominant team in the second half, but really we didn't look like scoring a lot of goals.
"The belief was still there, and we showed a lot of character, and kept on probing and trying to get in behind them to create opportunities, and we had one or two things that maybe on another night would have dropped better for us.
"Overall we didn't deserve anything because of the way we started the game. That's the kind of thing that we have to make sure doesn't happen again.
The manager didn't want to apportion any blame to forward Stephen Elliott, who missed a good chance early on to have given Preston another precious lead, but it wasn't to be. The gaffer explained:
"Goals change games. Obviously Stephen missed one, and then not long after they got one. From possibly being 1-0 up we found ourself 1-0 down, but you still have to respond, because that happens in football.
"Strikers miss chances, and overall I thought Stephen played well, so he can't be blamed for what happened - it was a team performance that wasn't good enough.
There appeared to be a questionable infringement in the build-up to the home team and the game's second goal - something that the manager saw too.
"Yes," he admitted "I thought it was clearly a foul, but it wasn't the referee's fault that we lost the game. It was up to us to perform better than we did tonight overall.
"It's vital that we respond exactly in the right way, and the right way is to make sure that we learn from what has happened. We have to be ready to put things right against Coventry."
Enough had already been said in the build-up about the absence of Sean St. Ledger - who the boss described as a 'really good consciensious professional' - following his departure to Middlesbrough earlier in the day, but there were still questions to be asked about Paul Parry's readiness to perform following an injury blow at the weekend.
"Paul was a long way away from playing tonight, really," said the boss. "He's got a hamstring tear, and we expect him to be out for a few weeks."
