Preston North End

The PNE boss spoke to PNE PlayerHD after Paul Gallagher’s well-worked goal had given the Lilywhites’ a deserved three points against Steve Bruce’s side and felt it was a thoroughly hard-earned victory.

“Today was the perfect way to finish off what has been an excellent year for us,” he told the Club’s online TV channel. “The work-rate, the performance, the reaction to the way we played at the weekend, it spoke volumes of the attitude and mentality of the players we have got.

“We were worthy winners today. It was a bit scary at the end, but it could have been four of five in the first 20 minutes against a very strong Hull City team.

“We maybe tried to walk the ball in too easily in the first 20 minutes, but the tempo we showed without the ball was fantastic and we looked a real threat.

“We said to the players at half-time that we needed to make sure we did not get disappointed and keep doing the same things, then we would have a great opportunity to win the game and we did that.

“There was a determination in the dressing room before the game to put Huddersfield behind us and go out again and try and get a reaction and a result and it was a perfect performance from my point of view.”

Paul Gallagher took the sponsors’ plaudits with the George Banks Jeweller’s man of the match award, but John Welsh was the heart of the North End display and manager Simon Grayson praised his No.19 and the rest of the squad.

“You know what you are going to get from John,” he continued. “We probably missed that side of the team at Huddersfield, but we felt that after Neil Kilkenny’s performance at Leeds that he had earned his place in the team.

“We lacked a bit of physicality with Alan Browne out of the team and we brought John back today and he did a great job.

“Every man within the team contributed and played their part in earning us the win that the performance thoroughly deserved.”