Youth team defender Cameron Day is confident the young Lilywhites can come back from their 2-0 loss against Walsall and finish the season strongly.
North End’s youngsters saw their rhythm interrupted with the defeat following a string of decent performances, even if those displays have not always brought the result to match.
The second-year scholar felt the team paid the price for an uncharacteristically slow start to the match as Walsall took a 16th minute lead before rounding the game off in the second-half.
“We’re usually quick starters in games and we can sometimes and get an early goal to go ahead, but today was obviously different,” the 18-year-old told PNE.com.
“I think if we had made a better start and not conceded that first goal, then we would have had a chance of going on to win the game because we were much better in the second-half.
“We came out knowing we needed to try our best to score goals and create opportunities, but we couldn’t get enough shots on goal.
“We were a bit unfortunate but we didn’t really do enough to seriously threaten them. We could have stopped both of their goals so on another day we could have got something out of the game.
“They had more older players who were quite physical and strong and obviously we had a lot of younger players who haven’t developed as much yet. I think that’s why they won the game.”
Nick Harrison’s team are next in action on Tuesday against Rochdale, the second placed side in the North West Youth Alliance, at UCLan Sports Arena.
Day is hopeful that he and his teammates can learn from aspects of the Walsall defeat in that game against Rochdale and that it can provide a platform for the team to build some more momentum.
“Rochdale are always a big and strong side that get into your faces straight away. Hopefully we can take some things from our performance today, learn from those and take them into Tuesday.
“We need that extra bit of communication across the backline but we can work on things together in training and learn about each other’s game and how each other plays. It’s about making little adjustments so we can win more games as a team.
“We have the [Lancashire FA] Youth Cup semi-final against Oldham [Athletic] at the end of the month and we are all looking forward that game. We’re trying to get a good run of form going but we will see how we perform in the next game on Tuesday.
“Hopefully we can get some wins on board and take that into the semi-final because we will still have a chance of getting into the final and winning a trophy this season.
“We just want to get as many clean sheets and wins as we can and to get into the final and hopefully we can win it.”