'Powerful for us' - Paul Heckingbottom's message to the Preston North End faithful as size of job assessed

Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom says the job at Deepdale isn’t bigger than he first thought.

The Lilywhites were mid-table for the vast majority of season one under Heckingbottom, who was appointed on August 20 after the sudden exit of Ryan Lowe - and two league defeats.

But, a dreadful run of results after the March international break saw North End dragged right into a last minute relegation battle. Having kept PNE up, Heckingbottom will now oversee a busy summer of business - but the final few weeks of the campaign haven’t changed his view on what’s required.

“No, because I know the league,” Heckingbottom told BBC Lancashire. “I know how tough it is. Like I said, it's been simple. I'm saying the same thing over and over, so we can see what needs to improve. When we've been dominant in games, we've not took our chances. Likewise, (the final day at Bristol City is) a great example. We'll be top half for shots faced for our goalkeepers.

“We'll be top half in the league; I know we are without looking. So, we need to keep more balls out of our net as well. We've not won a game ugly; we've not won a game where we've been second best. We've got to do that. If we want to be top half, we need to win when we're second best, and we need to convert those draws when we've been the better teams into three points.”

“Fans are going to be powerful for us.”

North End supporters were jubilant during the final day clash at Ashton Gate; staying in the Championship was a positive end to an uncertain few weeks for the club. Heckingbottom doesn’t believe survival should mask issues underneath it, but he wanted to stress the importance PNE fans will have next season - which will be his first full one as boss.

“No,” said Heckingbottom. “When I came in I said there was a negativity about the place and I think that's reared a little bit because we've been dragged into it. I've said before, sticking up for Craig and the Hemmings family, if there's some fans out there who want to be losing millions of pounds every year, do you know what I mean? They could take over and do it.

“I don't know if I'd be willing to do it. If it were my team, Barnsley... win the Euro millions, would I be willing to throw £12million of my family's money away every year? I'm not so sure I would. And then Peter's been on a bottom three, four budget, whatever it is... running the club, keeping the overheads down. So, you're never going to always keep outperforming that unless you're really, really good.

“And we have to be really, really good to do that. So, yeah, there needs to be a realisation where we're at because I love it when I see the fans like that today. The fans are going to be powerful for us. We know we have to perform in a way to get them going but likewise, we need them at home. We're going to have to make sure that we can get the atmosphere at home to a level, and get our performances to a level where, regardless who we're playing, no-one wants to come and face us.

“So, whoever we're playing - and we've done it over long periods this season but not got the wins that we maybe should have had, and that's got to be our lesson. We know we can do it. We know we're not far away from that, where we are now with the amount of draws and, like I say, we've not won a game yet where we've been second best this season. We need to make sure we can win ugly as well.”

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