Daniel Johnson praised Preston North End’s “terrific” 1-0 home victory over Bristol City.
DJ scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot in the 21st minute and from that point on, North End defended resolutely while causing problems going forward.
He told iFollow PNE: “I thought from start to finish we were terrific. First half we played some really good stuff and obviously we got the goal which was pleasing for us.
“I think the main thing for us tonight was maintaining that and just getting back to being hard to beat.
“We showed that tonight, we showed what we’re about and luckily for us we managed to hang on and get the win.”
Johnson’s goal from 12 yards was his first since he missed from the spot in the away victory against Reading in November – his only career penalty miss – so he was keen to get back to usual tricks.
That goal also pushed him up to fourth in PNE’s all-time penalty scoring chart.
DJ said: “I didn’t actually know that but it’s really good to know that. Hopefully there will be a few more to come.
“I wanted to put things right for myself really and for the boys. Even to just get that confidence back, sticking it in the back of the net again.
“I’m really pleased that I’ve managed to put that one away today and we’ll see what happens with the next one now because we’ve got three candidates that can step up and take them.
“But like I’ve always said there’s a lot of confidence within myself, Gally or Scott to take the penalty no matter what. But I think tonight the boys just wanted to leave me to it to put things right again.”
The Lilywhites put in strong performances all over the pitch, including Alan Browne who wore the skipper’s armband at Deepdale and put in another solid shift.
“That guy’s actually not human,” laughed DJ. “He was fantastic today, I thought all the lads were – Dec, Ben, Hunty, Josh Earl. I think everyone was.
“We defended our box really well today and it just shows what we’re about. We’re hard to beat and we can grind things out. It’s not gone our way the last couple of weeks, but today we really showed everyone what we’re really about, what Preston’s really about, we can grind a result out and we can play well.”
Alex Neil decided to make four changes in the second half, with Emil Riis and Jayden Stockley being two of the men to come on to the pitch, and that helped North End to offer a different threat up top.
“Ultimately as the game wears on, people start to get tired, people start to fatigue a little bit but the pleasing thing for us is that we can make a few changes, bring a few fresh legs on and make that change when need be.
“Emil gets the chance towards the end and on another day he probably puts that in the back of the net, but he brings the two boys on to keep the ball at the top end of the pitch and obviously we create chances from that.
“I think on another day we score more goals but we didn’t tonight, the pleasing thing for us is we were hard to beat today and defended our box really well.”
Hear much more from DJ in the video at the top of the page.