Preston North End man glad to be back after illness left him struggling to breathe

Preston North End defender Jordan Storey was pleased to be back on the Championship stage on Saturday, after illness left him struggling to walk up the stairs prior to the international break.

Storey has proven to be a key cog in Ryan Lowe’s team, so his absence was felt at Leicester City and Ipswich Town. North End’s task was to get back to defending well after the break and the Millwall clash saw PNE register another point. Mads Frokjaer opened the scoring after three minutes, with a ruthless, precise first time finish from the edge of the box.

Zian Flemming then punished a slip up in the Preston defence but North End, in the main, kept things relatively tight over the 90 minutes. Storey is back to full health and fitness and hopes he has seen the last of the sickness bug.

“Yeah, it was a bit hard for me,” said Storey. “I was proper chesty and couldn’t breathe, so it was a bit of a nightmare. I felt muggy and it was only this past week where I’ve been able to get my chest up to 100 per cent. It’s just been a nightmare breathing; even going up the stairs was a bit of a chore early on. So, I’m thankful to be back now and hopefully I don’t get it again. It was obviously a bit annoying because they are the games you want to play in: Ipswich and Leicester. You want to play against the best players, so it was a bit disappointing. But, I’m glad to be back and I’ll hopefully stay fit.”

Assessing the Millwall point, he added: “We started the first half really well and gradually dropped off as the half went on. I think it’s nice to stop the rot because we’ve been through quite a tricky patch. To be fair, Millwall did play some nice stuff. But they were looking to try and win any free-kicks or set-pieces they could, because that is one of their key strengths. I think they were quite effective at doing it but thankfully they didn’t cause us too much trouble with it, even though they were quite clever.”

Seeing Flemming afforded the time and space to shoot from 20 yards was a source of frustration for Storey in the first half. The Dutchman now has five goals against North End, with him scoring a hat-trick on his previous visit to Lancashire. Flemming wriggled away from Greg Cunningham and Ryan Ledson before unleashing a ferocious first time finish home. PNE knew they couldn’t give him the Millwall danger man such freedom.

“No,” said Storey. “We’ve all seen his quality in the past few times we’ve played him. He has scored some screamers and some vital goals for them, against us. So, we’ll be a bit disappointed, even though he got a bit fortunate with a couple of slips. He still took the goal well and we’ll be a bit disappointed with it, but I’m just glad we didn’t end up losing the game from a winning position. I think we’re thankful for the point.”

It was right centre-back again for Storey on Saturday and the game saw Preston continue their tactic of pushing the defender on, to win headers down the right flank. It’s something the centre-back believes is paying off this campaign.

“Yeah, it’s been new,” said Storey. “I think there were times last season where we probably tried to play a bit and it wasn’t working - so we’ve tried to just get ourselves up the pitch as easily and quickly as possible. I think we’ve been having some joy and benefit from it, especially in other games. I probably won my fair share (versus Millwall) but it was just difficult for the players to latch on to the seconds. I think it’s been pretty effective for us, because when any six-foot-two player goes up, runs and challenges, it is difficult for full-backs - who maybe aren’t very big or very strong. So yeah, it been quite effective for us this season and I’d imagine we’ll probably carry on doing it.”