Preston North End manager Alex Neil has seen plenty to impress him from Saturday’s hostsso far this season, as his side head to Bristol City looking to take their unbeaten run into the latest international break.
Speaking to iFollow PNE ahead of his side’s clash with Lee Johnson’s Robins, the manager feels they are another side who will feel they have deserved more points from the games they have played than they currently have.
“In the games I have watched them play in, there has been very little in the games, whether they lose the games or whether they win them,” said the gaffer. “They have performed pretty well in all the games I have watched them play.
“I watched them against Bolton and they found themselves 2-0 down and they had no right to be 2-0 down, they were the better team. The margins in this league are so fine and so when your opportunities come along, you have to take them and that can be the difference between being in a good position and not such a good position.
“They haver recruited well. They brought Kalas in, who is experienced in this division, they signed Webster from Ipswich, Jack Hunt has come in and they have got the young lad at left back who has broken through this season, so they have good balance to their team.
“They have a good method to how they work – Lee has good patterns of how he wants his team to play, so they will be a difficult team and it will be a difficult game for us.
“We have a good record against them, but that doesn’t really matter going into this match. They have a better record than us and they will be going into the game as the home team wanting to go and win the game.”
Both of last two season’s games against City were tight affairs, with North End grabbing late winners in them both and Alex feels that this is the slight difference between this year and that at the moment.
“The story of our season this year has been that we haven’t won those types of matches,” he continued. “Last year there were tight games where we would nick that goal when it really mattered.
“Their game here typified that. It was two-each and there was nothing in the game, with both teams having opportunities and chances and then Seani [Maguire] produces a little bit of magic and he manages to get the winner.
“Watching the games you couldn’t really tell who deserved to win, it was just a case of who could take an opportunity when it came along and that is something we have probably not been on the right side of this year, in terms of making sure that that little bit of magic ends up in the back of the net, but we hope come Saturday that it begins to kick in.”
This game is the last before the final international break of 2018 and the PNE chief hopes to get another positive result to build off the last six games.
“We are six unbeaten at the moment, but we have four draws in there, which has been a little bit frustrating. Some of those draws have been good points, but some we should have won the game, such as Rotherham and Ipswich.
“We are expecting this to be a really tough match, but it is a good game for us where we are asking ourselves if we can get the point going into this latest break,” he added.
Watch the manager's full pre-match interview for free by clicking on the video above.