Huddersfield Town boss questions his side's mentality after defeat to Preston North End in FA Cup

The Terriers took the lead through Florian Kamberi but a Tom Lees own goal, a Bambo Diaby volley and a late goal from Alan Browne meant that Fotheringham’s men went out of the competition.

Fotheringham did not mince his words after the match as he reacted to the loss. The away side had a chance to go back into the lead after PNE had drawn level and the Huddersfield boss felt that moment decided the game.

With Freddie Woodman away from his goal, Kamberi had a chance to bag his second of the afternoon but was denied by Bambo Diaby – a moment which led the Terriers boss to ask questions of the mental fortitude of his charges.

He said: “I'm very unsatisfied with that and I've made it clear to the lads. They're all very disappointed as well because when Florian scored his goal we were very on top in the game and I feel the game swung on his second chance.

"What I do question is how serious are you about winning games? If you're 1-0 up and get a chance like that you have to put Preston to bed, we let them off the hook. That's been the story of the whole season.

"This club had four points at the start of the season and now we've started winning games and drawing - we're not serious enough about winning games. We've got to get more focused, we've got to show more discipline and we've got to be pushing even harder now.

"I'll be picking the team on the decisions and the value from what I saw today, and I got a lot of answers for myself. We have a lot of young players and it's shown me that we have got a long, long way to go.”

Saturday’s game was a reversal of sorts to the Boxing Day clash between the two sides at Deepdale. In that game, PNE took the lead but surrendered it and the three points as Town won 2-1.

However this time around it was the Terriers who let their lead slip, with PNE advancing. Huddersfield will return to their relegation battle in the Championship but that does not mean they took their cup game lightly.

Fotheringham insisted after the match that winning the game was still important to him and blasted his side’s defending.

He said: “It's a very high priority to us because we wanted to go through, we wanted to bring winning habits to the club, we wanted to go and do back to back wins on Preston. I'm not a guy, whether I've got young players in the team or old players, they've got to go out there and stake a claim for the jersey and there were a lot out there today who were staking a claim for the jersey.

“The manner that they scored, it is not acceptable. It is not how we defend our box. I made it clear to them after the game, it's not the standards we've set for ourselves. We've been building on solid performances and clean sheets so we have to be honest with each other about it."