Preston travelled to Valley Road, Flixton for an evening encounter against Manchester City in search of their first league points of the season.
City had the first opportunity with a shot wide of the post. On nine minutes, Preston had their first chance of the game, a shot on target from Hannah Bailey gathered by the City keeper Worrall. Some three minutes later Bailey did well to bring down an Alison Taberner ball with a strong well timed tackle by the City centre half and Captain denying Preston further.
On 19 minutes Bailey played a good ball across the City box but nobody for the Lilywhites was following in. Anisha Bateman for Preston had her shot kicked out for a corner by the City keeper, the initial corner was cleared for another which was driven in low with the City backline somehow managing to clear in a goal mouth scramble.
In the 24th minute with the keeper off her line Bailey shot but the City captain headed clear off the line. From the initial clearance of the corner the cross played back in by Vicky Eastwood was met at the back post by Bailey whose glancing header eluded the City keeper to give the Whites a deserved lead.
Further opportunities fell to Preston before the half time interval with Bailey firing an Eastwood shot over and playing a ball through to Sam Cadwallader, her strike partner, with just too much weight for her to latch onto. A 1-0 lead was taken into the interval with City having caused the Preston back line few problems.
All this was to change. Within the fourth minute of the restart City had equalised, a good shot from some distance. They established a lead in the 52nd minute, further extended in the 56th minute to 3-1.
Preston manager Simon Gerrard replaced Willoughby in the back line with Belcher but this did not prevent City from adding to their tally, a poor clearance by the Preston midfield just outside the box seized upon by City, a shot from distance going past the Preston defence and keeper Horrocks into the back of the net.
A double substitution for Preston saw Berry and Cafferkey replaced by Watson and Martin, a more attacking formation in an attempt to get back into to the game, but disheartened Preston saw City get their fifth with Watson's only opportunity before the whistle going just wide.
A heavy defeat for North End in a game where for the first period at least they had been in the ascendency but failure to take advantage of this and poor concentration and passing in the second cost them dearly.
