PNE head into their penultimate game of the season sitting 16th

Preston North End assistant manager Stuart McCall accepts the last few months have not been good enough.

The Lilywhites sat fourth in the Championship table at the start of January after a convincing 2-0 away win at Bristol City - who were also going well at the time. However, poor form this calendar year has seen PNE fall out of the play-off picture and slide down the table. Going into the penultimate round of fixtures, they are placed 16th. McCall knows there have been damaging factors along the way but ultimately holds his hands up.

Speaking to BBC Lancashire, he said: “It's not easy to win games in this league. We had a really good start but there's also realism to it. I think I did interviews about that time, saying you don't want to ever dampen expectation, or what you're aiming to do. And when you're riding high, it's easy to get caught up in a wave, ‘This is where we should be. This is where we deserve to be’.

“And at the time, yeah, we merited being where we were. But when we were fourth, I think we were only three points above being 12th... it was always tight. So, you want to be positive and look forward but yeah, there's little things. It's easy to just say obviously, Dan (Iversen) got injured and was out for 10 games.

“And I've said before, I think Dan's probably one of the top three goalkeepers in this league. Harrison Armstrong goes back but also later on in that period, we go away to Ipswich and lose a goal in the 93rd minute, it costs us two points. We do exactly the same at Swansea, 94th minute, and we do it at Blackburn, which costs us a point.

“I think we've had some really good form from certain individuals, purple patches in the first four or five months. Probably, a few have dipped under that now. So all in all, it's a combination of everything and then on recent times, you look back at the goals the other night. I know all managers and coaches say it... poor goals to lose.

“But the decision making first and foremost, we get caught with the ball twice in our own half and then we pay for it by not being good 1v1 defending. But the other night there's no doubt, I think we deserved to get something from the game. Overall, a combination of everything but it's not been good enough for the last four months without that. The results certainly haven't and probably, a lot of the performances haven't.”