Graham Alexander explains formation change in Preston North End defeat to Stoke City

Graham Alexander has explained he changed formations for Preston North End’s trip to Stoke City to help with the players’ energy levels and double the number of personnel on the flanks.

Preston slipped to a 2-0 defeat at Stoke on Saturday, with Ben Wilmot and Jack McGlynn grabbing goals either side of half-time.

However, the score line flattered North End, who would have suffered another heavy defeat on the road if not for Daniel Iversen’s saves and some near misses.

Alexander took everyone by surprise by lining up his side in a back-four, rather than a back-three, for the first time at the Bet365 Stadium.

Explaining why he made the change, Alexander told The Post: “We're still learning about the squad and the individuals and we're trying to get them in position where they feel they have the most value, most effect.

“We showed the players a lot of clips of our shape when it's a back three and the wing-backs drop in on one side and stay up on the other, it's a back four anyway.

“We talked about it morphing from a 3-4-3 into a 4-2-3-1 all the time so we just thought we'd start in there because the energy levels needed to play that 3-4-3 in the way we want to do are tough to repeat and repeat game in, game out.

“So yeah, we tried to give the players a helping hand in the structure of the team.

“Have a bit of double width on both sides so they could combine and not just leave it on the wing-backs given the one-vs-ones situation and that was the thinking behind it.”

Was Alexander’s formation change a mistake?

There have been loud calls to see the end of the back-three, given it’s the formation Preston have mostly played in for five years.

However, the timing of the change seemed strange given Preston had played so well in their draw against West Brom last week in a new-look 3-4-1-2.

When asked if he thought altering the shape after the promising performance was a mistake, Alexander replied: “Could be, yeah.

“I'll assess that, if that's the case. I'm not oblivious to my responsibility in football but if that's the case, that's the case, but we're still learning about the team.

“I could show you 20, 25 clips from last week when we were in that shape in possession. People become obsessed with the starting formation. It's writing names down on a team sheet.

“You could stop a video every minute and they'll be three different formations in the same team because of the fluidity of movement.

“But, listen, it's something I'll look to do. We have to change something to change the course of results and that's what we tried to do today.”

Alexander verdict on Brad Potts’ performance

Brad Potts was deployed in the attacking-midfield position in the 4-2-3-1 but was subsequently taken off at half-time.

Alexander believes he was ‘hampered’ by a booking he received in the opening seconds for a late challenge on Luca Bambino.

“I thought he was hampered by the yellow card,” he said.

“I thought it was a harsh yellow card in the opening minute-and-a-half. We wanted to get him running forward.

“I didn't think it stopped him doing that but on the competitive side he had to be careful after that point. In the duels, didn't really make contact.

“Probably wary about doing that away from home and getting a second yellow. Obviously we went down to 10 men a few weeks ago.

“I thought it took away the competitive side to him by having that early yellow card, to be honest, it was a bit of a frustrating moment that for us.”

Giving his general thoughts on the game, Alexander added: “It was a performance that went went away from us, really.

“I thought we started the game well, competitive in the game. A repeated offence with the set piece we concede from.

“I still think we responded okay to that up until half-time and the players were determined at half-time to turn the result around but the second goal's really opened us up and we were just found wanting really.

“We became really open trying to chase something but we didn't have the quality to produce it.”