Aston Villa penalty save not the only catalyst for our upturn in fortunes says Preston 'keeper Chris Maxwell

The ‘keeper kept out a stoppage-time spot kick to ensure a pulsating game ended 3-3 back on October 2 as the Lilywhites ended a concerning stretch of four straight defeats in the Championship.

PNE have not lost since and are five games unbeaten with a trip to bottom club Ipswich next up on Saturday.

“It’s strange how things can turn in football and it’s nice that people might look at that as a catalyst for things changing for us,” said Maxwell, who kept out Glenn Whelan’s effort with a save low to his left.

“It’s not just that one individual moment in the game though.

“You look at Louis Moult’s goal there, the pass that put Lukas Nmecha through that got James Chester sent off in the game.

“You could look at other individual aspects of that game as well.

“It’s not just me. There’ are 11 players on the pitch plus the three that come on as well.

“As a squad we’re close and have always been high in confidence.

“I don’t think that’s changed since the start of pre-season and it’s nice to see that the hard work we’re putting in is now paying off.”

The former Fleetwood and Wrexham man insists he never had any doubt things would turn as North End look to climb towards the right end of the Championship table.

“I said it when we weren’t doing well, we believe in ourselves and the manager believes in us,” Maxwell said.

“I believe we were going out and performing.

“Certain things weren’t going our way in games but I said at the time I thought things would turn around.

“I had faith in the players in front of me, faith in the staff and structure we have here.

“We’re a good team. We’ve proved that on a number of occasions against some very good teams as well.

“We’ve picked up some fantastic results in the last 18 months or so.

“There’s a real belief here that we can do things and we can achieve what we want to achieve.

“Every team in the league has a bad run of games and it’s what you do in those run of games in terms of learning from it and such like.

“I believe we’ve had that spell.

“It’s all going well at the moment and it’s up to us to maintain that on the pitch on Saturday.”