Ryan Lowe was understandably delighted with his side’s “great start” in the 2-1 victory away from home against Birmingham City.
Preston North End raced into a two-goal lead inside the opening 15 minutes of the game, with Ryan Ledson opening the scoring on the ten minute mark with a brilliant strike from the edge of the box, before skipper Alan Browne doubled the lead.
North End did concede with seven minutes left on the clock, but they held on to leave the Midlands with the three points.
Ryan said: “Sometimes you’re thinking, ‘Okay, can we get three? Can you push on to get four?’.
“It doesn’t matter what we get, as long as we win a game of football.
“It was a great start, a great strike from Ryan with a volley at the edge of the box, and a well-worked corner which we’d worked on with Robbie [Brady] and Browney across the front, and I thought we could have potentially had another one.
“Then the second half, two halves are never the same. We knew they were going to come out and throw everything at us, which they did.
“The goal is a sucker punch, but to see the game out the way we did was fantastic.
“I thought some passages of play were good, but it wasn’t pretty at times.
“We used the two young lads [Liam Delap and Tom Cannon] to get in behind their backline which we felt was a real threat for us.
“Listen, you can talk about anything, but as long as you get three points it’s the most important thing and that’s what we got today.”
North End were cheered on all afternoon by around 1,500 supporters in the away end at St. Andrew’s.
They were in fine voice throughout the 90 minutes, and they enjoyed celebrating with the team at the end of the game – something they’ve managed to do several times on the road this campaign, such is the record away from home.
“It was excellent,” the manager said, about the fans.
“I could hear them in the dressing room; we must have been right underneath them.
“They were loud and proud from right before they got in here.
“Then obviously the two goals give them something to keep cheering about.
“At the end, it just epitomises what we’re all about. The away fans have been fantastic all season because that’s where we’ve been generating the points of course.”
The manager laughed: “Can we not just put them 1,500 somewhere at Deepdale? Maybe right behind the goal? I’m not too sure, but they were all fantastic so thank you from me and the players because it means a lot to us.
“Sometimes we’ll go a little bit down, not performing and not getting results, but if they stick with us like that, we want more good moments like that, so again we’ve sent them home happy which Is pleasing.”