Dave Seddon's verdict: Wigan Athletic 1 Preston North End 2 - A successful drive to the DW Stadium for Daniel Johnson

Thankfully Preston didn’t entertain the offer last summer and the midfielder’s mode of transport to the DW Stadium on Saturday dinnertime was North End’s team bus.

The bus returned up the M6 later in the afternoon with three points as the extra passenger, Johnson having played a big role in the 2-1 win.

He set up the first goal and scored the second, a tidy 90 minutes’ work.

Him and Tom Barkhuizen hit the 10-goal mark for the season together, to the delight of 3,294 PNE supporters who made the trip.

When you consider DJ didn’t start the season in the team and missed nine games in December and January, to be in double figures come early February is pretty decent going.

Johnson was close to being North End’s best player at Wigan but not quite.

Ben Pearson just shaded him for that accolade although we are talking fine margins.

Pearson patrolled the middle of the park so well, his slide-rule pass in the build-up to the first goal a touch of class.

He drove his side on, made sure they secured a fourth away win of the season.

This was a fifth away game on the bounce unbeaten, form which will be put to the test against at Stoke on Wednesday night and beyond that at West Bromwich Albion and Fulham before the month is out.

Bearing in mind the latter two opponents especially, the Lilywhites really needed to win at Wigan and they came up with the goods.

The nerves a derby clash can bring, were calmed inside five minutes by Barkhuizen’s opener from a Johnson cross.

When the pair reversed the roles just after the interval, a comfortable victory looked to be on the cards.

It turned out to be anything but, the home side hauling themselves back into the game with Chey Dunkley’s scrappy goal as the hour approached.

If North End had displayed their attacking flair in getting in front, they then had to show a defensive solidity to keep the lead.

Wigan slung balls into the box in a bid to find the giant frame of Kieffer Moore, a striker PNE once had designs on.

The visitors had to deal with that threat for the best part of half an hour before Moore departed and was replaced by Joe Garner.

With Wigan pushing as they did, it was testimony to North End’s defending that Declan Rudd only had one save to make in that final spell, a diving save to parry Joe Gelhardt’s drive from 20 yards.

For the way they defended, the manner in which they scored the two goals, Preston deserved the victory.

But it was one they had to work for and one which was rather satisfying.

In winning, they did the league double over Wigan for the first time since 1992/93. For balance, Wigan last did so over PNE in 1987/88.

Far more importantly, the three points moved Alex Neil’s men up to sixth spot with them leapfrogging Bristol City who had lost on Friday night to Birmingham.

They are now only five points behind second-placed Leeds and Fulham in third.

This season the Championship is wide open and North End are right up there in the mix.

Keeping them in it might mean Neil having to push his players to the maximum and be creative with his line-ups.

Neil certainly had a few folk question his starting XI for this one, in that he left Josh Harrop out of the side and brought back Sean Maguire.

He was keen to stress that it was not a like-for-like swap, Maguire over Harrop.

Behind his thinking was a desire to play a natural striker in the No.9 role.

He had a choice of Maguire, Jayden Stockley or David Nugent and went for the Irishman.

Although Maguire has in the main been used wider this season, he still sees the central role as being his favourite.

In Neil opting to bring Maguire back, someone had to drop out of the attacking line and that was Harrop.

The other change was Andrew Hughes preferred to Joe Rafferty at left-back.

When Hughes came off later, Rafferty stayed sat down with Darnell Fisher switched to the left and Tom Clarke summoned to play right-back.

Clarke’s extra height was a factor, bearing in mind Moore wasn’t the only one in the Wigan team on the tall side.

I don’t know who won the toss but the teams changed ends ahead of kick-off, that affording the Preston fans a close-up view of the opening goal in the fifth minute.

Rudd had already saved well from Jamal Lowe by the time a PNE attack broke down and the ball came the way of Scott Sinclair down the inside left channel.

He played it inside to Pearson 30 yards out who took a touch and then slid a delightful left-foot pass into the box.

Johnson curved his run to meet it down the left hand side of the box and play a first time ball across the face of goal for Barkhuizen to run in and score without breaking stride.

Maguire forced a great save out of keeper David Marshall with a header from Fisher’s cross, with Sinclair shooting wide after another Pearson pass had played him in.

If PNE hadn’t taken long to score in the first half, they took even less time after the interval to net their second.

A little more than two minutes of the second half had been played when Patrick Bauer won possession in his own half, Barkhuizen taking up the baton from there.

He moved into the Wigan half, passed the ball inside to Alan Browne and then took the return pass.

The winger’s low cross found Johnson who dug it out of his feet and slammed a shot into the bottom corner.

Wigan’s reply in the 57th minute was scrappy, sub Joe Gelhardt getting two bites at the cherry to lift the ball over into the six-yard box.

Moore chested down and as the ball bounced around Dunkley hooked it into the roof of the net.

PNE tightened things up from there in order to secure three valauble points and return to to the top six.