Manager Simon Grayson felt that his side has earned a valuable point is a difficult game against Birmingham City on Tuesday night.
Speaking to PNE PlayerHD after the 1-1 tie with the Blues he gave an honest assessment of the game, which had a tale of two halves.
“Any point you get in the Championship is a hard-fought one,” he said. “We played against a good team today. We knew all about them; they have quick counter-attacking players, but we did okay, got the goal and weren’t really threatened too often – just the one change when Demarai Gray went through, but in the second half we were slightly off it.
“They upped the tempo and when you look back they had the better chances of the second half. We still had opportunities, but it is a fair result, although an honest assessment is that it swayed in their favour.
“Any point you get is valuable in this division.”
The Lilywhites took a first half lead through Adam Reach’s first goal for the Club, albeit a fortuitous one: “We made a good start and we ask the wide players to put the ball into the box at times and Adam put it in the right area – so it was nice for it to go into,” continued the gaffer.
“We knew we had to try and up the tempo a little bit second half, but they did the same. Toral changed the game for them and we were very fortunate that our goalkeeper made some good saves and the lad missed a good opportunity for them right at the end.
“Jordan has done really well for us. He will disappointed with the goal, because he came for the cross, but we can forgive him that because he made some fine saves towards the end of the game.”
The manager felt that his side will benefit from the extra day’s rest going into the weekend’s game after starting to tire against Gary Rowett’s side.
“We felt as a team we were a little bit off the pace of it tonight. We were a little bit too open at times and allowed them to try and punish us.
“The lads were a little bit leggy through the course of the game. The whole team didn’t reach the level of sharpness of the last couple of games, but that is to be expected t times,” he added.
You can watch the full interview, plus see the thoughts of man of the match Jordan Pickford by clicking here to log on to PNE PlayerHD now – remember if you sign up for an account before 2016 you could win one of a whole host of prizes!