Preston North End's flexibility in changing formation pleases Alex Neil

The PNE boss switched from a 4-2-3-1 to 3-4-1-2 to match up the Terriers after seeing their teamsheet 75 minutes before kick-off.

It was the same side he had intended to start with in terms of personnel but there were positional changes for a few of the players.

Andrew Hughes came inside to form the three-man defence with Patrick Bauer and Jordan Storey.

Joe Rafferty moved across the pitch to left wing-back, with Alan Browne taking the right wing-back role.

Up front, Scott Sinclair got a central role playing next to Emil Riis.

Neil said: “It was that late (having seen the team sheet) that we changed.

“That is why I gave the lads a bit of an allowance for the first 10 minutes, albeit it wasn’t the shape which caused us issues.

“It was more the lack of aggression and comfort on the ball which meant we didn’t start well.

“Having watched the game back I’m still of the view we could have started a bit better.

“Huddersfield’s change of shape was done out of respect to us in that they wanted to try and create the extra player when building their play.

“They were conscious of how we press the ball.

“How we went about things showed me two things – the flexibility of the players and the confidence I have in team to take these messages on board and carry them out at short notice.”

Preston are no strangers to going three at the back, doing it a couple of times towards the end of last season, so too against Stoke last month.

Neil will always favour a 4-2-3-1 or a slight variant of that but is open to change should he think it will help his side.

“Going three at the back isn’t something we haven’t done before,” said Neil.

“Last season at Sheffield Wednesday we played the exact same way and won.

“It’s not as if I was throwing them in at the deep end and they didn’t have a clue what to do.

“We’ve done it previously but not at such late notice, so the lads deserve a lot of credit.”

PNE are back at Deepdale on Wednesday night (7pm) against Millwall.

The Lions use a 3-4-3 so it will be interesting to see if Neil uses the shape he did against Huddersfield or go back to a flat back four.

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