Alex Neil pleased as Preston keep play-off hopes alive

Posted Sunday, April 29, 2018 by PA

Preston boss Alex Neil was more pleased with the result than the performance after his side kept their Sky Bet Championship play-off hopes alive with a 1-0 win at Sheffield United.

Alan Browne scored the only goal at Bramall Lane as North End moved to within two points of the top six with one game to play.

Neil said: “It’s certainly one of those games where we’ll take the result and the performance separately.

“It’s probably as poor as we’ve played technically in terms of moving the ball and controlling the game, but we still managed to win the game.

“I don’t want to take anything away from the players. They’ve dug in and done what they had to do to get the result, but it’s certainly not a vintage performance from us.

“I thought we started brightly. We started sharply and, to be fair to Sheffield United, they grew into the game and dominated probably about 20 minutes towards half-time.

“At half-time we had a chat, simplified things and we matched them up. We put three at the back, two up front and made it more of a battling game.”

The Blades had a handball appeal turned down midway through the first half when Billy Sharp’s cross struck the raised arm of Greg Cunningham.

Preston started the second half the better side and took the lead in the 56th minute. Josh Harrop forced a decent save from Jamal Blackman, but Browne was on hand to poke the ball into an empty net.

United tried to dominate with their physicality but Preston put up heavy resistance, got to second balls and kept the Blades at bay to see out the win.

Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder said: “It was a tight game between two teams who have both had really decent seasons.

“We saw today a lot of things that we’ve seen in previous games and we have to be better and learn through the experiences this year.

“It was a cagey start from both teams. They had a shape which caused us a few problems without really getting anywhere.

“We had control of the ball in the last 15 minutes of the first half and dominated.

“It’s a goal out of nothing, really. It’s a mistake by us, we’ve thrown it to Lee Evans, and it’s a straight forward one we should have dealt with.

“I don’t think we have a problem getting it from A to B but you’ve got to finish teams off and, when they do have their little bit in the game, which they did second half, we have to deal with it and we didn’t do that today.”