DJ finds PNE's defeat hard to accept

The midfielder saw two good chances go to waste in the first half as PNE bossed the play.

Wolves then scored against the run of play on the stroke of half-time, doubling and then trebling that lead with two goals in four minutes either side of the hour mark.

But North End went on to make a real fight of it, Jordan Hugill heading home to cut the deficit and then an own goal from Conor Coady left the hosts hanging on.

Johnson said: “I thought we played really well in both of the halves but their goal right on half-time killed us.

“That goal was a sucker punch really after we had been the better side.

“Two of their goals in my opinion were bad decisions.

“For the second goal, Josh Harrop got a toe to the ball but a penalty was given – I didn’t think it was a penalty.

“Then before the third, their guy obstructed Chris Maxwell as he tried to kick the ball.

“That should have been a foul but play went on and they ended up scoring.

“Sometimes things like that go for you, sometimes they go against you.

“We didn’t let our heads drop, we kept battling until the end and got two goals back.

“Unfortunately we didn’t get a third goal and that was disappointing.”

Johnson said there was never any question of North End giving up the ghost when they went 3-0 down.

“We had nothing to lose at that stage,” said DJ.

“Some teams might have thought the game was done but we didn’t think that way.

“We went man for man and tried to get the better of the man you were up against.

“In many ways we did that, hence us getting it back to 3-2.

“We can adapt to a lot of things, we have the squad and ability to do that and it was just unfortunate we couldn’t get another goal.

“It was a good game, the crowd was loud and the away fans were fantastic again.

“What we have to do now is dust ourselves down, go again and get ready for the next game against Brentford at Deepdale.”