Neil dreaming big at Preston

Posted Sunday, March 18, 2018 by PA

Preston boss Alex Neil has challenged his players to go and achieve something after putting themselves in with a fantastic chance of a top-six spot in the Championship.

Two goals in 13 second-half minutes put the Lilywhites in command against bottom-club Sunderland, who looked every bit a relegation certainty after the restart.

Preston’s 2-0 win lifted them to within two points of sixth-placed Middlesbrough and Neil didn’t want to talk about Sunderland, five adrift of safety, too much.

Neil said: “We’re mixing it with some big teams at the top, we’re in a fantastic position and in good form. We played better last week against Fulham and lost and we’ve moved on considerably since the start of the season. The aim now is to try to achieve something.

“I’m very pleased, our main aim was to come and try to win the game. The only frustration is that it could and should have been a bigger winning margin. Both sets of players deserve credit because the conditions were so testing but we played very well.

“Once we went ahead you could see their heads go down and from that stage we should put the game to bed.

“It’s hard for me to comment on Sunderland, I don’t know the ins and outs of what goes on behind closed doors, it’s a big stadium and a big club and it’s a shame the position they’re in right now.

“Everyone wants the big clubs to show what they can do and Chris [Coleman] is working really hard to change things round here.

“I’d seen Chris Coleman’s comments before the game about us being a long ball team and I found that quite amusing to be honest.”

Sunderland manager Coleman was obviously not a satisfied figure, knowing his side had missed out on a chance to cut the gap to safety to two points.

They are now without Jake Clarke-Salter for two games after he collected his second red card, after just returning from suspension.

Coleman said: “There’s nothing new I can tell you. Same mistakes, same theme. I keep saying the same things every week. First 45 minutes were OK but after that we give away a ridiculous goal, the kind of goal that we don’t get from opposition. We work on set plays but we don’t mark and you get punished.

“Six times since I’ve been here we’ve had men sent off, maybe that’s a team that’s struggling and pushed to the limit. It’s a common theme. I’m saying the same things as I was two weeks ago, we’re conceding silly goals.

“We’re only one win away from changing it round but you’d write us off because we keep making mistakes and we’re not rising to the challenge. We change formation and personnel but we don’t seem to be hitting the mark.

“The best thing for us is this two-week break, in terms of the pressure being off next weekend. We wanted to go into the break on a positive note on the back of a result but it’s the opposite of that.

“We’re never going to get away from where we are if we play like that. You have to keep focus at this level, if not you’ll get punished. You don’t get away with it.

“We’ve tried a lot of different things. We’re up against it here before we’ve kicked a ball, it’s been like that for a couple of years and that’s self-induced but the fans clapped us off at half-time.”