Paul Heckingbottom's 'beginning to irritate' admission as frustration fires Preston North End boss up

Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom knows the task for his team is to turn performances into results.

The Lilywhites had a dreadful day at the office prior to the international break - and were deservedly beaten by Portsmouth, who collected their second win of the season. Preston have been at the races in many other games, but only have three league victories to show for it.

The last fortnight has allowed North End's squad and staff the chance to recharge the batteries, before getting back to work on Monday. Heckingbottom was left massively frustrated by the Pompey loss - admitting post-match that it had eroded some of the confidence he had built-up in the players.

On the whole, though, he feels PNE should absolutely have more points on the board - whether it be missed chances or refereeing decisions going against his team. Equally, he knows that counts for nothing and it's on the Lilywhites to push up the table.

"Those little moments, and in both boxes," said Heckingbottom, when asked what improvement he is looking for over the next batch of games. "We had a spell of keeping really good clean sheets, then Norwich, Bristol, Plymouth - the amount of shots they've had on goal against us, some teams would take that for one Championship game... and yet we conceded eight goals.

"So, we have had really loose moments. I am looking back. Bristol, only five shots on our goal and one of them was from a handball. Norwich, I thought played really well against us but performance, big chance, xG wise, we should've won the game. So, where they scored their goals from is really frustrating for us - despite us having more possession.

"Plymouth, we all know about that. So yeah, we have been punished more than I think is fair - at one end. But, that is down to us to correct that. If we have to give no chances away to win, then we have to do that. Then, at the other end, we know we have created more than enough to win a lot more games. To have players back is really important.

"Like I say, those two areas will always determine how many games you win. Whilst we want to keep a certain level of performance - how you play in one box and the other box will hide a lot of that. Yeah, (we should be 6-8 points better off) but we are not - and we know why. We have to be better. A few bits, we know are probably out of our control - we’ve mentioned luck. But, we can’t sulk about it. We have to worry about the bits we have got wrong.

“So yeah, we certainly should be (higher) and for me, it is the three pointers. It is the ones where we have been in those positions, whether it’s Plymouth and listen, the Sunderland performance for me deserved three points... I thought so. Burnley, deserved three points and nobody could’ve begrudged us that if we had got them. But, we didn’t, so we have to go and replicate that and make sure we turn them into three points rather than one.”

There’s a long old way to go in the campaign, with 31 matches still to contest. It’s an extremely close Championship once again and with a busy festive schedule in store, there’s plenty of points to play for over the coming weeks. Heckingbottom is still at the stage of focusing on performance rather than the league table - even though he is obviously aware of it.

“No, no, just because of how tight it is,” said the PNE boss. “It is more that feeling I want to get back, from winning games. Rather than being pleased with a lot of those performances and them being draws, it has been beginning to irritate me - so I want to feel different after a game.”