'Brave' Preston earn boss praise

After a week which saw star man Sean St Ledger leave for Middlesbrough and his side suffer a first league defeat, Preston manager Alan Irvine must have feared the worse after Coventry City had much the better of the first 45 minutes at Deepdale on Saturday.

'Where you are playing in a game where the two systems being used are totally different, the team which passes the ball better will dominate,' he said.

'That is what happened here, certainly for the first 20 or 25 minutes, Coventry were the better side.'

PNE battled back however and a three-goal salvo sealed the points for the home side.

Irvine added: 'In the second half we looked a lot more composed, I told the lads at half-time to be braver mentally, be prepared to take the ball rather than hoping someone else would do it.

'I told people to get into more advanced positions, the full-backs to go forward, the wide players to come in from the lines and make themselves harder to play against.

'The lads did that very well, we showed character to dig deep and come back from an awkward position.'

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