Paul Gallagher underlined the fact that key moments can be costly after Preston North End’s 4-0 defeat to Cardiff City, but stressed that he takes ‘full responsibility’ for his penalty miss in the Welsh capital.
Gally stepped off the bench alongside Anthony Gordon on the hour mark and the pair made a quick impact with the score at 2-0 – the latter winning the first of two penalties in a frantic couple of minutes, the No.12 seeing the first saved, and Ched Evans likewise with the second.
Speaking to iFollow PNE post-match, the 36-year-old said he would ‘take full responsibility’ after seeing his effort from 12 yards saved by Cardiff stopper Dillon Phillips.
“I take full responsibility, I should really score the penalty,” he said. “We get another bite of the cherry and the ‘keeper saves the next one. That just summed the day up really.
“If I could have converted the penalty myself, we give ourselves a little bit of hope going at 2-1. Giving teams a 2-0 head start, it’s an uphill battle. The next two goals we give away are easily avoidable. If you’re thinking back, we can easily avoid all of those goals today.
“Key moments cost you games. We said before we went out, play in their half – as I alluded to, we gave them a cheap throw in early on, it gives them time to put pressure on our box.
“The amount of balls they put in the box, it’s only a matter of time before someone dangles a leg and gives a penalty away or it drops to one of them, because that’s what they’re good at, picking up second balls in and around the box. It’s tough and we’re all disappointed.”
North End conceded inside two minutes of the first half – Cardiff converting the first of three spot kicks in the game courtesy of Kieffer Moore – and inside 30 seconds of the second half restart, and Gally admitted that gave the team an uphill battle.
“We knew coming here today was going to be a tough game; physical, strong in set plays. After about a minute we give them a throw in, throw it straight in the box and give a penalty away. If you give a team like Cardiff a goal head start, especially in the first half, it’s going to be a long day.
“I just don’t think we battled as hard as we usually do. You know coming here you’ve got to be up for the fight first and at the start of the second half, we give another goal away straightaway. We ended up having a mountain to climb early on and they’re good at what they do.”
The midfielder said that going again almost immediately in midweek, with Queens Park Rangers the visitors at Deepdale on Wednesday night, had to be seen as a positive and an opportunity for the Lilywhites to put this defeat behind them.
“Now we just can’t wait for the next game to try to put it right, that’s the only positive that there’s another game coming quickly. But at the minute it hurts and I take full responsibility of having the opportunity to try and get us back in the game, to miss was disappointing.
“I think sometimes they got one or two nil up, they let you have the ball then, they’re happy to sit in and we can’t get fooled by that, we need to play in their half from the word go.”
Watch more from Gally on iFollow PNE.