Manager Graham Westley shares his thoughts following the Lilywhites’ visit to Leyton Orient.
“You can look at the changes and the disruption and possibly argue that they have made the difference today. We have a clear week now were we can get ourselves sorted out and develop our game for good cup game next weekend.”Learning our back four routine was always going to be difficult, we put Todd in for a late replacement for Jeffrey Monakana. It would have been a great three points; it would have been great to stay unbeaten today.
The gaffer concluded his interview at the Matchroom Stadium by saying: “We knew today was going to be really difficult but all of the sudden we have had over 30% of our side taken out of the equation. We brought in a loan player who is going to take time to adjust and I started him on the wing instead of his natural right back position.
However, Orient were troubled throughout by debutant Todd Kane, with the Chelsea loan star causing havoc down the right hand side.
Orient, who won their fifth game in a row on Saturday afternoon, moved level on points with North End in the League One standings after Saturday’s result.
“They are both disappointing goals to concede, they defended their box manfully by blocking and challenging. There was a lot going on in Leyton Orient’s penalty area but they kept a clean sheet and in the end that is what counts.”
“Both goals are going to be ones that our defence is going to be happy with, I need to take a look at them again to see them from the goalkeeper’s point of view but they were both poor goals. One was a straight ball and the other was from a set play.
“The players did carve out the chances, ruthless at one end and clinicality at the other was the difference between the two sides.
“We didn’t have our usual fluency, without Keith Keane who is a big pass maker for us at full back we were always going to be disrupted in our normal patterns of play.
“If you get the ball into their box and create chances, the chances are you played some good stuff to get there and I thought we did. We showed a good sense of purpose when we went 2-0 down and a good sense of determination to get back into the game.
Giving his reflection on the game, Westley said: “We didn’t do a good as job of those in the two boxes, in the end our 23 attempts to their eight shows we have built a lot of play and the score line suggest we didn’t do enough with it.
PNE bossed the game at the Matchroom Stadium but were on the wrong end of a 2-0 result, even though the visitors created 15 more attempts on goal than Russell Slade’s Orient.