Preston North End boss explains McCann and Woodburn subs and discusses where the tactics went wrong

North End were soundly beaten by the Canaries as Teemu Pukki and Kieran Dowell both netted twice in a performance that saw boos ring out at Deepdale on multiple occasions.

PNE were three goals down in less than half an hour leading to Lowe making a double substitution, withdrawing Ali McCann and Ben Woodburn for Alvaro Fernandez and Liam Delap.

“I have to make a decision at times like that,” Lowe said. “I just felt that with two eights when we play Browney and DJ in there, I've said numerous times, we're good and on the front foot. Especially in the second half, they tried and got about.

"Ali and Ben were the obvious ones because Ben was playing in the 10 position off the striker because he is not a natural striker, to get another striker on the pitch he had to come off.

"Ali is not a natural four or eight, he is more of a six bombing on. He was playing eight at the time but I just felt that at the time it was to get Browney up the right hand side and DJ down the left for a bit of balance.

"They're disappointed, I'm disappointed for them and I've apologised for taking them off but it's my job to make decisions and sometimes I have to do that. It definitely wasn't their fault.”

PNE were camped in their own half for much of the game, which was not the plan from Lowe. He had changed his formation away from his regular three at the back system to four at the back and although he insisted the change of shape was not at fault for their demise, the way it was played was not what he was looking for.

On being deep, he said: “Definitely not, and we were trying to get the lads up. You have to give Norwich a lot of credit as well, they have some good players and they pushed us from a two in midfield and a four right up top and sprung it right on and were good on it.

"We couldn't get to grips with it, it looked like they had extra numbers hence why we had two holding midfielders in there with Ali and Ryan first. It didn't go to plan. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. It definitely wasn't the plan to be deep.”