Neil felt Preston lacked belief to beat Wolves

Posted Sunday, February 18, 2018 by PA

Ten-man Preston held runaway Sky Bet Championship leaders Wolves to a 1-1 draw but Lilywhites boss Alex Neil was disappointed his side did not have the belief to take all three points.

After a quiet opening half – similar to the reverse fixture back in October which Wolves ended up winning 3-2 – the game burst into life in the second period as Alan Browne put the hosts ahead.

But John Welsh then saw red for two yellow cards at Deepdale and Wolves hit back, Helder Costa slotting home the leveller.

Neil’s side had to dig deep to claim a share of the spoils thereafter, extending their fine form to only one defeat in their last 16 games, but it could have been so much more.

“I think we worked hard but that’s something we do every game, I fully expect that. First half we limited Wolves to not many chances,” Neil said.

“But I thought we had one ingredient missing in the first half which was a bit of belief that we could beat them.

“I didn’t think we had that belief and we spoke about it prior to the game. That was the basis of my half-time team talk. We started the second half on the front foot, we got our goal.

“What would have been really good would have been to keep 11 men on the pitch and see how the game transpired. At that stage I was really confident that we would have gone on to win the game.

“I think at that stage we were the team on top and normally we finish games really well, we are one of the strongest teams in the division at the end of games.”

Wolves’ three-match winning run is at an end, and their lead at the top of the standings has been cut to 11 points.

But boss Nuno Espirito Santo was quick to give credit to a Preston side who remain just outside the play-off spots.

“Everybody knew about Preston, one defeat in 16 games says a lot about a team,” he said.

“We have to give credit to them because after the sending-off they drop and they defend well.

“Everybody thought that we were closer to winning the game but playing against one man less requires a different approach. I think we created enough chances to win it but we have to have a different approach and it’s something we have to look at.

“In the same way, we have to look at set-pieces because we were in control of the game and we concede from a set-piece.

“I am not happy with the result because we prepare every game to win. That’s what we do and we need to look at what happened today and get better.

“I am very proud of the attitude of the team. We were relentless, that’s the word and we need to be relentless every game, looking for things to happen.”