Preston North End fans' panel: Some of our best attacking football this season in win over Sheffield Wednesday

It is fair to say though that after this win over Sheffield Wednesday I left the stadium in a far more upbeat mood.

After our 1-0 loss at home to Wednesday last year I'd left the ground downcast as, at that time, the Owls were well adrift at the bottom of the league. The dismal game had been a very tough watch with our performance being one of if not the worst I had seen at Deepdale that year.

However, Sunday's entertaining game was one of the better ones seen at home this year with the result bringing some extra festive cheer for the Deepdale faithful and also making it back-to-back home wins for us in this holiday period.

It was not as plain sailing as the 3-1 result might suggest though. Backed by a raucous sell-out away section in the Bill Shankly Kop, the Owls soon took flight and managed to ruffle our feathers by having two chances in the game’s first four minutes.

But, like a boxer on the ropes in the opening round of the contest we were saved from a potential knock down by the most unlikely source of the game being stopped due to an injury to the linesman, with the delay in replacing him taking some of the wind out of our fast-starting opponents’ sails.

In the reverse fixture played just under three weeks ago at Hillsborough, Wednesday had created next to nothing. With this in mind I must confess to being a little surprised by their attacking play but watching the first half, it was easy to see why they had only lost just once in their last eight league games on the road.

At half-time I thought we were fortunate to be leading thanks to Emil Riis’ close-range finish. Although Wednesday had lots of possession I think that we played some of our best attacking football of the season so far in the second half.

It was end-to-end stuff and when, at 2-1 up, it looked like we were struggling to bolt down the drawbridge from Wednesday’s marauding attackers, we were rescued by our own White Knight "Sir Riisalot" when the Danish striker extended our lead, with another close-range poacher’s-type of goal.

There were plenty of other "White Knights" in shining armour in this rousing second-half joust which made picking a man of the match such a difficult choice. The sponsors chose Sam Greenwood, scorer of our second goal from the penalty spot, and he seemed to be involved in all our attacking moves, being unlucky not to extend it himself earlier when his shot hit the crossbar.

My choice though would have been Jordan Storey, who I thought was had another immense game. Storey is now forming a formidable centre-back partnership with another potential candidate Jack Whatmough, who seems to be benefiting from a regular run in the side.

I thought Josh Bowler had his best game so far in a North End shirt, Freddie Woodman is beginning to look more like his old self and made a great one-on-one save. On another day Riis, Kaine Kesler-Hayden, Ali McCann and Andrew Hughes could all have been singled out for the award.

It is now just one loss in nine for North End since that sorry first-half performance at Portsmouth, and this win means that thankfully we are now closer to the play-off spots than the relegation ones. As ever it’s always the hope that kills you but maybe it might be a Happy New Year for us – providing we can add a couple of quality additions to the squad.