Despite losing 3-0, defender Jack Whatmough felt there were plenty of positives for Preston North End to take from the performance against Leicester City.
PNE adapted their usual style by switching to a back four and, despite missing a number of regular starters, for an hour they limited the league leaders to very little.
Once Kieran Dewsbury-Hall scored in the 60th minute, though, the hosts started to take more control and added further goals from substitute Kelechi Iheanacho and another from Dewsbury-Hall.
Jack said: “We set out a gameplan and we stuck to that. We did that very well for an hour and then their quality shone through.
“They’re a very good side with very good players, so for us it’s [about] learning from it, and we’ll try put things right on Saturday.
“The messages in there are that there’s a lot of positives to take from that.
“We know this week’s a tough week with the fixtures we’ve got, but [having] just come in this summer, it’s a real tight-knit group and one that’s going to fight for each other.
“We showed that tonight and we’re going to show that all season. Hopefully we can turn it around on Saturday and go and get a result.”
After beginning the season by going unbeaten in the opening eight matches – winning seven of those – PNE have now tasted defeat in two consecutive matches.
However, there was a lot of disappointment and frustration surrounding the performance in the previous 4-0 loss to West Brom, whereas Wednesday night felt slightly different.
Jack said: “Obviously I didn’t play on Saturday so watching that for me felt a lot different and that was the message coming out of it.
“There’s positives to take out of it, as stupid as it sounds with a 3-0 defeat, but there are positives to take out of it.
“Leicester are a quality side and will definitely be up and around it come the end of the season, so I think these are the games you want to test yourselves in as a player.
“So we’ll try and take the positives out of it and learn from the mistakes as well.”