Paul Heckingbottom makes 'really good' Sheffield United admission after Preston fightback
Sheffield United blew a two-goal lead to lose 3-2 at Preston North End on Friday night.
Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom admitted his side made life difficult for themselves after they recovered from 2-0 down to beat Sheffield United 3-2 at Deepdale on Friday night.
After not seeing an awful lot of the ball in the opening exchanges, United took the lead with ten minutes on the clock when Andre Brooks found a gap in the North End defence and was sent scampering clear by Tyrese Campbell to slot home his first goal of the season.
The Blades wasted no time in building on their early opener, doubling their advantage just six minutes later when Callum O’Hare bundled his way through the North End defence and fired a low shot past goalkeeper Daniel Iversen.
From that moment onwards, it looked as though United were well on their way to a third successive win, but Lewis Dobbin pulled a goal back for the home side right on the stroke of half-time to change both managers’ half-time team talks.
North End got themselves back on terms immediately after the break via a Japhet Tanganga own-goal before completing the turnaround when former Blades striker Daniel Jebbison sent a brilliant header past Michael Cooper in the United goal.
Understandably, Heckingbottom was delighted with his side’s recovery after a disappointing start, but he did acknowledge that his players struggled to deal with the Blades’ threat on the counter-attack.
Heckingbottom reviews North End comeback
“I’m really, really pleased with the players after a really frustrating night midweek,” Heckingbottom told North End’s club website. “They’ve showed what they're all about again tonight.
“I'm really proud of them, with the spirit, the energy, the performance, the 15 players who were on the pitch. It will always be a team game. I’m really, really proud.
“It's difficult against a team that are very, very good on the counter and you could see that. We started the game fantastically well and we've got some young players in the team and we've got Odel [Offiah] playing out of position.
“We just switched off and bang, all of a sudden we're one down and we give them the second goal and that's against a team who are really good at setting up to just play on the break.
“But we played into their hands for ten minutes after the second goal. We just lost our shape and our discipline with the ball, trying to get the first goal, second goal, third goal all straight away and just played into their hands for a bit.
“Once we corrected that, we were fine. The goals we scored were excellent.”