Paul Heckingbottom’s reaction after Preston North End’s impressive triumph over Bristol City
PNE continued their winning start to 2026 with a 2-0 triumph over Bristol City on Sunday afternoon.
Paul Heckingbottom has lauded PNE’s outstanding display after fending off ‘the best in the league.’
And the North End boss has revealed what impressed him the most in Sunday’s 2-0 win at Ashton Gate.
Bristol City 0-2 PNE
In-form Lewis Dobbin capitalised on an early Max O’Leary error to open the scoring before Alfie Devine netted his second goal in as many games to extend their advantage after the break.
The Robins did have their chances, though, with former PNE striker Emil Riis striking an opportunity wide late in the contest.
The triumph moves North End up to fourth in the Championship standings and are now just three points away from the top two as their brilliant form continues.
And Heckingbottom was delighted with his troop’s ‘strong’ away showing to limit a Bristol City side, who went into the game off the back of a 5-0 win over Portsmouth, to very little.
Paul Heckingbottom’s Bristol City reaction
The head coach told Sky Sports after the game: ‘It was a really strong performance, a really strong away performance.
‘I think the biggest compliment I can give the players is the fact that they (Bristol City) are the best with the most number of counter attack shots, second most number of clear cut chances yet today they had nothing.
‘A lot of that was down to how we set up and then obviously when we scored that good early goal, it allowed us to keep playing the same way.
‘We looked dangerous the whole game and limited a team, who I consider, one of the best in the league to very little.
‘We expect that. If we want to win, that's what we’ve got to do.
‘We’ve put ourselves in positions in so many games, taking the lead and we want to defend like that. It’s not a one off, it’s how you’ve got to win games in this league.
‘No game is a given to you, everything’s really tough and we’ve come to a place where we know it’s going to be difficult so we had to defend but we also have to be really positive ourselves.
‘I felt we consistently had the best opportunities on the counter attack and when we did play good football.
‘Probably the only blemish on our performance would be the positions we got ourselves in, didn’t materialise into more clear-cut chances.’