After claiming the winner and the man of the match award in today’s 2-1 win over Hull City, PNE’s Alan Browne spoke to iFollow on his own personal development and having to adapt to different positions today.
Browne started the game in the No. 10 role this afternoon, but with PNE looking to preserve their lead Ben Pearson was forced off injured on 76 minutes leaving a hole in the middle of the park to fill, and after stepping up to fill that void, it left Alex Neil hailing Browne’s display as ‘incredible’.
However, speaking to iFollow after the game, Browne believes feeling comfortable in a number of positions is nothing new to him.
“It’s something I’ve always had in my game,” said Browne after the final whistle. “It’s good to be able to slot into different positions as you never know you might be needed elsewhere but thankfully I was there to do that job today.
“I think right from the start of the season, I’ve got stronger and I think I’m developing well particularly on the ball and hopefully I can keep delivering performances like today.”
On the game itself, Browne was under no illusions of the threat Nigel Adkins’ side posed to them this afternoon but despite their position in the league table, his anticipations of a real scrap were justified, particularly early on when it was the Tigers who initially took the lead.
“We knew it was going to be a battle and at times we played sloppy football, but we tried to get it down as much as we could.
“We’ve got experience however to know that we can’t always play football and results are more important than the performances right now so it was just great to get the result we wanted.”
Goals from Greg Cunningham and Browne himself ensured North End claimed back to back wins today, and after stepping up to convert from the spot, Browne also took a moment to reflect on the equalising goal that ultimately got the ball rolling for the three points.
He added: “In the last few years, me and Greg have been mixing and matching a bit when it comes to going up for corners. We take turns for going in and thankfully Greg has gone in today and scored. It was a superb ball from Gally as always from him and a great finish.
“I didn’t see the penalty incident at the time but we know what Billy is capable of and when he gets one vs one, he likes to get in those positions which is great to see to get us the penalty.
"I was confident enough to step up, take it and turn in what proved to be the winner.
“The gaffer wasn’t happy with our performance at half-time even though we were in the lead and rightly so.
"We didn’t play as well as we could have but we came out of the traps, put the pressure on, and had them defending from the off. Towards the end, we knew we had to see it out as they brought players forward but I thought we managed to deal with it quite comfortably.”
Watch the full interview with Alan on iFollow PNE now.