Alex Neil non-committal on absence of Daniel Johnson from Preston North End's side as Rangers look to swoop

The Lilywhites went down to 1-0 defeat on the opening day of the Championship campaign, Morgan Gibbs-White scoring the Welsh side's winner eight minutes into the second half.

There was no Johnson in the North End side amid speculation that he is to join Rangers in a big-money move.

The midfielder watched the game from the Invincibles Pavilion, the speculation about the interest from Ibrox having broken on Friday afternoon.

Asked if there was any update on Johnson's situation, Neil said: "There is no latest."

Pressed further on the matter, Neil added: "I'm not going to discuss any individual player's situation, that isn't fair.

"People will jump to their own conclusions and don't really understand the situation.

"I'm not going to comment on it."

Clearly there are plenty of legs to the Johnson speculation and it seems likely that his five-and-a-half year stay with PNE is coming to an end.

The 27-year-old is down to the last nine months of his contract and is showing no signs of penning another.

As for matters on the pitch, Neil was disappointed with North End's performance against Swansea.

He felt the goal was a soft one to concede and their attacking play rarely looked like bringing about a goal at the other end.

Neil said: "Connor Ripley didn't have a shot to save.

"In the first half we had little spells when we were on top and Swansea had spells when they were on top.

"We got into some good areas but our final ball let us down at times. There wasn't much in it.

"These games are going to be decided by making sure you don't give the ball away cheaply which I thought we did too often, making sure you don't make silly mistakes defensively and making sure if you get chances you are clinical.

"That was how the game panned out. For their goal we tried to feed the ball down the left hand side which got cut out. It was a sloppy pass which got cut out.

"They switched the play, put the ball in the box and I didn't understand how it ended up in the net as it did.

"I've watched it back and to be honest we should have dealt with it.

"It was just a ball put across, we were in a good position and we just misjudged it and it ended up in the back of the net.

"We changed the shape to match them up, be more aggressive in the sense that it was a straight match-up.

"When we did that our use of the top at the top end of the pitch didn't really damage them enough.

"We created as many chances as Swansea did but their chance ended in the back of the net.

"There wasn't much in the game. We wanted to play better, I didn't think we played anywhere near the way we can.

"When we matched them up and it became more of a physical competition, we became better."