Manager Alex Neil reflected on this afternoon’s 1-0 defeat to Derby and felt his players did enough to win the game.
Tom Lawrence’s free kick early on in the second half gave the Rams the spoils at Deepdale in this afternoon’s early kick off, and the manager was left to rue the missed opportunities his side had throughout the 90 minutes.
“We were the better team throughout the game,” analysed Neil after the final whistle. “We moved the ball better, created more opportunities and we did pretty much everything you can do from a performance but the key areas where you need to make your differences is the scoreline.
“We had the penalty obviously where we miss it which can happen - but we had 19 opportunities - two of which were on target so it shows that that’s the area we’ve lacked in terms of quality to make the difference.
“Then they have two shots on target, one of which ends up in the back of the net. What’s disappointing for me is that I’ve got some lads who are devastated in there, one being Alan Browne and I really feel for him at the moment. We done everything we could, the one thing we lacked is putting the ball in the back of the net.
“They didn’t have a shot on goal in the first half but at the end of the day the ball has got to go in the back of the net and that’s what matters. We moved the ball well at times but when we did get opportunities we snatched at them, there’s not much I can say because I can’t be too critical of my team because they performed well and they did nearly everything I asked of them. You just rely on their ability to put the ball in the net.
Neil added: “We did everything we could we just didn’t have enough to win the game. We were dealt with a sucker punch from the free kick which we should have done better with so naturally we’re all disappointed and frustrated today.”
Although admitting that the job of a Play-Off place remains even harder following today’s result, the gaffer vowed to the PNE fans that they’ll be doing everything they can to win their remaining games and see where it takes them come May 6th.
He continued: “What I’ve said to them is there’s been more than five points that we’ve had to chase down at some points this season.
“It’s now going to be minimal five points but we’ve closed that gap before and we’ve just got to try and play as well as we can and try and win as many as we can.
“We’ll be disappointed tonight after today’s game but we need to brush it off and finish the season strongly, obviously we’ve been really disappointed today but we’ve got six games to go to make sure we finish the season strongly.
Watch Alex's full interview on iFollow now.