Graham Alexander shares what he told his Preston North End players after Stoke City defeat
Preston were defeated 2-0 by Stoke City on Saturday.
Graham Alexander talked to his Preston North End players about how they need to react to mistakes following Saturday's defeat at Stoke City.
It's now five games without a win for Alexander as his Preston side were comfortably swept aside 2-0 by Stoke, with only Daniel Iversen's saves and the up-right ensuring the score wasn't heavier.
The result and meek performance came as a stinging blow after it seemed like progress was made in last week's draw with West Brom, with the mood around the club hitting a new nadir.
Alexander believes his players need to understand that mistakes are inevitable, but they can't be allowed to have a 'fatal' impact.
When asked by The Post if he felt everyone was pulling in the right direction, Alexander said: "Yeah, I do, yeah. Yeah, I do."
He then shared what he told the players after the game. The manager said: "We're humans. I've been there.
"I said this to the players afterwards. I'm not sitting on this high horse as if I didn't make a mistake, or didn't lack confidence at times or didn't take the responsibility as an individual in team performances at certain times, but over the years you understand you only regret it if you act like that at moments.
"When you're in the cold light of day in your own house, and it's just you with your own thoughts, I think that's when you understand what you are.
"I think, for me, it's giving the players that clarity in how to approach it as a human being rather than a footballer. Just understand we're going to make mistakes, we're going to give the ball away, miss a duel. It can't be fatal. That's the thing.
"Every single player makes a mistake every single day, but in training there's no long-term effect of that, but in game it seems to be we don't want to do that.
"I think we've stopped taking the responsibility individually to actually perform at the level I know the players are capable of through how they train."
Alexander's thoughts on PNE's performance vs Stoke
The team earned a rousing reception from the Deepdale faithful for their gut-busting performance against West Brom.
When asked if his side were able to replicate that same level of energy at the Bet 365 Stadium, Alexander replied: "I think we did until the first goal, or the start of the second half, when they got the second.
"I thought we tried that, we turned the ball over. I still think there's a belief. I talk about this. I talked about it last week. It was a great example for the players to feed from going forward about that connection, trust, going with the guy in front of you, but I still think there was a pause at times.
"Football is such fine lines that that one yard back instead of one yard forward is the biggest difference. It gives space to good opponents who can open you up.
"If you look at the moments last week when we were always on the front foot, and we were making contact with people, I think there was some decisions that went against us that were cheap earlier on that probably frustrated the players from being a competitive team, but we can't look at that for the rest of the game because there was a thing we could do lot better, obviously."
Alexander was then questioned about whether the team had a confidence issue when facing a setback such as going behind.
He added: "I think there's a confidence [issue] but I'd be stating the obvious if I said that.
"It's not just a month of results, it's a long time. If I said anything differently I'd be lying. It's something the players have spoken about themselves.
"You can still be a competitive team without confidence. You can still do the basics well and right. But at this level you have to go just beyond the norm.
"I think it takes confidence to that. We showed so many examples of us doing that last week, that's why I was hoping we could build upon that.
"I think we started the game well with the right ideas to do that, the punch on the chin really rocked us."