Preston looking for a boost at Huddersfield after faltering start to season

The Lilywhites make the trip to Huddersfield tomorrow night as the division’s bottom club following back-to-back defeats in the league.

Them and Nottingham Forest are the only two sides without a point, the start to the campaign a worry for the North End faithful.

So there’s plenty riding on the visit to the John Smith’s Stadium which is being shown live on Sky Sports.

PNE head coach Frankie McAvoy was frustrated with Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Reading, a game his side had dragged themselves back into at 1-1, only to concede again.

Like against Hull the week before, shortcomings at the back disappointed McAvoy.

It is six goals shipped in two league matches, that giving McAvoy plenty to dwell on ahead of a big week with a home clash against Peterborough to follow the trip to Huddersfield.

McAvoy said: “The way we conceded the goals was the disappointing thing for me.

“I had felt pretty confident that our lads would defend their areas well.

“Reading changed their system and we had three defenders against their two attackers.

“If I’m being honest, they caused us lot more issues than we did against their defenders.

“We need to get back to being defensively solid.

“In the past we’ve done well doing that but we talking about the here and now.

“At the moment it is not good enough.

“The two goals we conceded were extremely poor defensively. When you concede goals like that it makes it hard to win games.

“When we equalised at Reading I was confident of going on and winning it. I wasn’t expecting Reading to go and score a second from the situation they were in,”

In both the Reading and Hull games, McAvoy felt PNE had been below par in the first half before picking up in the second.

Even in the 3-0 win over Mansfield, they were better in the second half.

“That is what we try to do, be strong from the start,” said McAvoy.

“We took kick-off at Reading and actually kicked the ball out of the park which wasn’t ideal.

“I didn’t think there was too much in it until Reading scored the first goal.

“Credit to us, we got back to 1-1 but it was a poor second goal to give away.”

McAvoy hopes to have Ched Evans back tomorrow night, a foot injury keeping him out of the Reading game.

But Tom Barkhuizen will miss out again as he is having to self isolate.

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