Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Stoke City and Preston North End at the bet365 Stadium on Tuesday night; Goalless between the Potters and the Lilywhites as goalkeeper Freddie Woodman sees red late on for bizarre red card.
Tuesday 26 November 2024 23:41, UK
Stoke extended their unbeaten run to five in the Sky Bet Championship with a 0-0 draw against Preston.
The highlight of the game came in the closing stages when North End keeper Freddie Woodman was sent off for deliberately handling the ball outside the box after a short back-pass.
Neither side could break one another down, with the game littered with corners throughout.
After a cagey opening 15 minutes, the first two chances of the game fell the way of home side Stoke.
Something we have come to expect on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke over the years is a flurry of set-pieces which cause havoc for the visiting defence, and this game was no different.
A corner from Jun-ho Bae was flapped at by the retreating Woodman, who got just about enough on the ball to prevent it from going over his head and into the bottom corner. The danger was not over there, however, as Wouter Burger's rebound was prodded against a post and away from danger.
Two minutes later it was Burger again with a great chance from another corner. A different taker in the form of Million Manhoef found the head of the Dutch midfielder - and with Woodman in no man's land again - he could not direct his effort goalwards.
The Lilywhites should have opened the scoring just after the half-hour mark when a ball from the right by Sam Greenwood found Milutin Osmajic at the far post, but the Montenegrin striker's tame attempt on goal was easily claimed by Viktor Johansson.
Paul Heckingbottom's side came out more aggressive at the start of the second half and almost took the lead five minutes after the restart.
A training ground corner routine saw Greenwood spray a delightful ball to edge of the box for the waiting Ben Whiteman - his strike, however, was blocked inside the six-yard box by Tatsuki Seko.
Whiteman then had his sweeping right-footed attempt tipped round a post by Johansson, who smartly got down to his right.
The final and only flashpoint of the game came in the final seconds when a moment of madness from Woodman in the Preston goal saw him swivel on the ball and pick up a back-pass outside of his box which duly saw him receive his marching orders.
Stoke's Narcis Pelach:
"The most important thing is not losing, it is five games unbeaten now and just one defeat in 10.
"This is not me trying to be positive, it is me being realistic, in the league that we are in, it was not our best performance, but we will have another different game on Saturday and we'll try to give our all.
"If you cannot win, don't lose. That is something that happens a lot, a performance like this or 1-0 away from home, you lose the game and then you are like, what have we done here.
"We had a lot of possession but we did not do enough with it, I think we had 12 shots overall, but only one on target. We were not close enough to score goals, we lacked pace, and we lacked speed.
"But at least we were competitive enough to stay on it and we defended a lot of corners against an experienced side.
"This was a dangerous game, I think Stoke lost that game last season. So at least we've got the point, but yeah, I am not happy with the performance overall, especially offensively, but we move forward to the next one."
Preston's Paul Heckingbottom:
"I am pleased with lots of things, once again we've limited a team to nothing on our goal, which is becoming a good habit which I'm pleased with.
"We've not had our rewards for doing that to be fair in the last few games, because even though the team might have had one attempt on goal, they would have been scoring with that attempt.
"So tonight, I am pleased with a clean sheet, I am pleased with the way we were able to impose ourselves on the game in terms of get better as the game went on, which is always a good sign when you're away from home in particular, because you know the home side is going to be the ones forcing the issue.
"I'm not saying that we came here and dominated the game, people will probably look at it and say it's a fair result, but I thought we shaded it and looked stronger as the game went on.
"We have been dominant in games and not won enough of them, but that is nothing to fear or to lack confidence over, we just weren't as positive as I would have liked us to be."
