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PNE were behind inside just four minutes as Emiliano slipped Ollie Watkins in behind for the Championship's top scorer to volley past Declan Rudd.

North End were not without their chances but couldn't find the cutting edge.

The loss leaves the Lilywhites five points away from the play-off places, with all involved still having two games to play.

Alex Neil during Preston's defeat to Brentford.

"I don't think we played poorly, I thought in the game we had a clear plan to start with," Neil said.

"Our biggest frustrations are the manner of the goal. We've got the ball and transitions are always going to be one of the biggest issues, but if we slide and lock that side a little better than we do I think we see out that phase of play.

"We then have a really good opportunity, Tom Barkhuizen has probably our best chance of the game when he's put through one on one with the goalie and the goalie makes a good save, and that's the difference in the match.

"Bear in mind we're playing a team that is fighting for automatic promotion at this level, so we're not fighting against a lowly team in the league.

"This team went and took all of the top three apart."

The PNE boss hoped to make the clash at Griffin Park - the final time North End will travel to that site in the capital - a tight affair, and felt his players carried out the tactics well but for one blip.

He said: "I think our set up and how we went about it tonight, for me, was very good.

"It gave us the best chance of getting something from the game.

"We wanted to make it a 1-0 match, but we obviously wanted to make it a 1-0 match in our favour.

"If you come out and make it a really open game against Brentford, in the form that they've been in, they're really dangerous.

"The early goal was the biggest disappointment of the whole night, to be honest, I thought the lads carried out all the stuff that we'd spoken about and worked on very well. But they were caught on that one bit on the transition.

"We go forward, we give it away cheaply and we didn't recover quickly enough, we didn't secure that side well enough and we had the numbers to do so.

"We had three centre backs picking up one centre forward at that time. Unfortunately we didn't see it quick enough and we didn't repair it."

Alex Neil: "I don't think we played poorly"