Preston North End’s ‘Fab Four’ give boss Alex Neil plenty to smile about

The quartet of Tom Barkhuizen, Brad Potts, Josh Harrop and Sean Maguire caused plenty of trouble to a Mansfield defence that could not contain them.

North End ran out 4-0 winners in their season-opening Carabao Cup first-round tie at Deepdale with all four contributing to at least one goal.

Barkhuizen opened the scoring, receiving Potts’ pass, before Maguire made it two after receiving Harrop’s pass.

The wide man’s corner was then turned home by Patrick Bauer before half-time and in the second half, Barkhuizen’s cross found Harrop who finished off the scoring.

There are plenty of options for the Lilywhites in those forward areas, with Scott Sinclair coming off the bench and Billy Bodin and Jayden Stockley both unused substitutes.

Speaking about his potent front four, Neil said: “It’s got great balance. It’s got Josh Harrop drifting in linking play, it’s got Tom Barkhuizen with width and pace, Sean can do a bit of everything, particularly against a back three.

“They leave spaces for him to dart in behind.

“Potts is big, strong and he’s a strong runner from deep who’s got a goal in him as well.

“The biggest thing for us today was that Mansfield were really aggressive, they play on top of you and force the wing backs on. You can end up four v four.

“To really damage that you need dynamic players who can take it in, tip it off and play up, back and through.

“We did that today because we thought that would damage them and that proved to be the case.”

North End will now be in the hat for the second round of the Carabao Cup but still have almost two weeks to wait until their first league game on September 12 against Swansea City.

With most of North End’s goals last season coming from midfield players, Neil was happy to see his forwards chipping in with goals.

He was also glad his side kept the Stags at bay, but does admit he will always be looking for more from his side, as he expects the PNE fans will as well.

“It’s always important, a good performance, your forwards getting goals and a clean sheet,” he said.

“I’m always going to be greedy as I’m sure a lot of the fans will be and want to play well from the first second to the last second.

“At any level that’s always extremely difficult.

“There were real lulls in the game where I thought we could have done better but over the piece I thought they did very well and thoroughly deserved the win.”