Preston North End player column: Victory at Stoke was a huge boost after the three-week break

We showed some good quality and character after going 1-0 down to come back and score twice.

It was more than three weeks since we had last played so it did feel a little bit strange being back out on the pitch and with very limited training time in the build-up.

Defensively, we did quite well. I’m told Stoke only had two shots on target, one of which was the goal.

That was some goal wasn’t it? When a player hits the ball that well, there’s not a lot you can do about it.

Their goal came very early in the second half and we recovered well.

Brad Potts’ goal was a good one, it was nice play with us working the ball up the pitch and then down the left.

With us playing a back three and Stoke a four, there was always going to be the chance to find some space down the sides.

Late in the game we got the winner with Andrew Hughes’ header and it was great to celebrate that goal.

We had done quite a lot of work on corners and it’s nice when that work pays off.

There have been two wins under the new gaffer which is a great start for him.

In between was the Covid situation which saw three of our games postponed.

That was a strange time and hopefully we are now through that difficult spell.

All season we had been used to a schedule of playing Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday, then suddenly we had the three week gap.

We could still train for the first part because the first postponed game was at Millwall and it was Covid in their squad which saw that called off.

When Covid was in the squad here, the training ground had to close and we had to stay at home.

We kept fit by going running, we were given a fitness programme to do.

Christmas was quiet because of no games and no training.

My family were able to come over, so it was a nice quiet time with them at home for a few days.

When we were able to go back to the training ground, we trained for four days in a row leading up to Stoke.

That is not normally the schedule before a game but we needed to get work done to get us conditioned and ready to play again.

Now that we’ve played a game, we can get back into a more normal routine.

On Sunday we play in the FA Cup against Cardiff City and it is going to be a strange one with the game being behind closed doors.

We’ve all loved playing in front of the fans again this season, so having to go back to an empty ground isn’t the best thing.

We will just have to get on with the game and focus on playing rather than on the fact no fans are watching.

It’s a game against a team from our league and we played Cardiff at Deepdale not too long ago. They beat us that day so we need to be a lot better this time.

We want to have a good run in the FA Cup, like we did in the Carabao Cup.

If we could beat Cardiff, it would be nice to play one of the Premier League clubs.

In the Carabao Cup we ended up playing my parent club Liverpool. To have a big club at Deepdale again would be great.