Preston North End manager Graham Westley told the press after the game that there were positives to take from his side’s clash with Championship outfit Leeds United.
“But you show understanding that they are not quite familiar with all of the jobs and it is something that happens which you wouldn’t expect to happen in the league season.”
“It was one of those when we conceded a very poor goal and if it was a league game and one of your squad players let that happen, you would be extremely disappointed.
“When trialists are coming in and doing key jobs it can happen that they don’t fully understand how you go about things and how you adjust things if certain scenarios happen.
“We didn’t look out of place against them albeit the result shows we have got work to do both defensively and offensively to put ourselves in the right shape.
“We are not at the level yet which is good enough to beat Leeds United but they are established, they haven’t just brought together 23 players like we have.
“If we are going to go forward and be successful, if you are going to be successful in League One you are turning yourself into a Championship side.
“All things considered we have brought in a lot of new players this summer and we are building a new team and learning each other’s ways and my way. There are a lot of positives that can come out of the afternoon.
“Across the afternoon there was a lot that we needed to look at but there were some more encouraging signs and a few moments where you could see we are nine days away from competitive action,” continued the 44-year-old.
Going forward, Westley wants his squad to be at a level that can beat teams at Championship level, but is confident with more hard work they will reach their target.
In front of a crowd of 6,500, North End demonstrated a style of football which was pleasing on the eye, with the squad showing again that they are blending together nicely.
“The changes where not tactical, it was so we could take a look at a couple of trailists and in fairness we lost our way a little bit but albeit apart from the balls that hit our net Thorsten Stuckmann wasn’t really tested.”
“The team started the second half strongly, we played good football, got on the front foot and scored a deserved equaliser and up until we made a number of changes we were convincingly in the game.
“We went in at half time and I don’t think 1-0 justified our performance, we played some decent football and we could have very easily have scored ourselves if we didn’t concede that set-piece goal, we would have been ahead instead of behind.
The first 65 minutes we played decent football but we went behind unnecessarily, it was poor work defensively from a set play that saw us go behind,” said the gaffer.
North End where the brighter team for more than an hour against Neil Warnock’s side, however despite John Mousinho’s first goal for the Club, the hosts lost 3-1, which didn’t reflect the games play.