Ben Pearson believes that this afternoon’s defeat to Fulham will be used to drive PNE on in the final nine games of the season.
North End performed brilliantly across the 90 minutes but fell late on to a goal by Aleksandr Mitrovic after the Serb had seen his opening goal cancelled out by Sean Maguire.
Speaking to iFollowPNE, the Lilywhites’ No.4 was keen to use the result as fuel to bounce back.
“From start to finish we were probably the better side. They had little spells in the game but I think we have had the majority of it. When you concede right at the end, it’s probably a mistake form ourselves and it’s obviously tough to take.
“I think that’s going to be one of the toughest games they are going to come up against, it’s just unlucky that we conceded at the end.
“Everyone is gutted in there, so we will use that as fuel to put it right in the next game.”
After an impressive display from the whole team, Pearson has insisted that confidence will remain high in the dressing room, with nine games still to play.
“For the past four or five games we’ve realise that every game is huge and if you lose you slip out of the way. It’s a set back today. It makes it worse that we were the better team and I think we should have got something from the game.
“If Fulham come here and dominate us then you hold your hands up and you say they were the better team but I don’t think they were today.
“Confidence will still be high in the camp, the players realised, the staff, the fans, have all realised we’ve played well today, we were just unlucky.”
With the squad and manager highlighting the role the fans can play in the lead up to recent games, Ben was full of praise for the North End faithful and their vocal support.
“From start to finish they were brilliant, they stuck with us, even when we were one down. The tactics we had today, we used similarly when we played them away, worked perfectly.
“Our team plays the right way, whether that’s aggressive or not. We don’t see it as that. We just see it as that if you get in people’s faces they can’t play, no matter who they are. To a man, everyone was brilliant today. It was just unlucky we didn’t win.”
You can watch the full interview with Ben Pearson on iFollowPNE by clicking on the video above.