Preston North End's intensity levels in the draw at Norwich impresses Alex Neil

The Lilywhites put in the hard yards at Carrow Road and came away with a 2-2 draw.

That work-rate left some players with cramp in the latter stages – Ben Davies and Alan Browne had to be substituted.

To bring some freshness to the team, Neil will make changes for Wednesday night’s clash with Brighton at Deepdale in the Carabao Cup.

That will be also be with Saturday’s league game against Stoke City in mind.

PNE manager Neil said: “The lads put so much into the game, they were dead on their feet at the end and that is the effort you want from your team.

“You want them to leave everything on the pitch and they certainly did that.

“We had Tom Barkhuizen taking cramp and he was struggling with his breathing because of his asthma, Ben Pearson had cramp.

“I can assure you the lads’ fitness levels are excellent but when it is warm like it was at Norwich – it was more than 20 degrees down there – it makes things tough.

“Norwich made the pitch very big with their play so we had to cover a lot of ground.

“Some of the distances in that game were incredible.

“Scott Sinclair I think covered more than 1,000 metres high intensity which doesn’t happen very often.”

Although Davies and Browne had to be substituted at the weekend, Neil does not see any long-term issues.

They might not feature against Brighton as he rotates the squad but should be available for the Stoke match.

Neil will have Jayden Stockley back after the striker had to pull out of Saturday’s squad due to possible Covid-19 issues in his family.

However, a test for a family member has come back negative.

Daniel Johnson will not be available for the next couple of games though, and that is not to do with the transfer speculation surrounding Rangers’ interest.

The midfielder suffered a groin injury in training on Friday and a scan he had over the weekend revealed some minor damage.

Said Neil:”We had DJ scanned on Sunday and he has a grade one injury in his groin that will be at least a week unfortunately.

“We substituted Ben Davies because he’s had hamstring issues before and we didn’t want to take any risks with that - we couldn't afford to lose him for a number of weeks."