Preston North End 1-0 Hull City: Brad Potts seals Lilywhites win
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Preston North End and Hull City at Deepdale on Boxing Day; Brad Potts scores the only goal as Paul Heckingbottom's Lilywhites claim all three points.
Thursday 26 December 2024 18:36, UK
Brad Potts scored the only goal of the game as Preston overcame Hull in the Sky Bet Championship.
Potts grabbed his third goal of the season on the hour to earn North End a first victory at home since beating Coventry on October 19.
He thought he had scored the winner last Saturday against Leeds, only to be denied at the death by Jack Whatmough's own goal.
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The result leaves Ruben Selles' Hull languishing in the bottom three.
The Tigers started with authority and, in the sixth minute, Regan Slater shanked a glorious chance well over the crossbar after goalkeeper Freddie Woodman parried Joao Pedro's fierce effort back into the danger zone.
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Preston soon woke up and retaliated shortly afterwards as Milutin Osmajic slammed Mads Frokjaer's low cross wide from a difficult angle.
But North End's Montenegrin attacker should have done much better in the 21st minute, firing tamely into the arms of Woodman from six yards following great work from Kaine Kesler-Hayden.
Kesler-Hayden provided another great pass on the stroke of half-time, bending a ball to the back post for Ben Whiteman, who powered a volley just wide.
Preston continued the second half on the front foot and Osmajic again fired wide from a decent position after latching onto Potts' ball in behind.
Sam Greenwood has so often been the source of attacking inspiration for manager Paul Heckingbottom this season but the on-loan Leeds man dragged a 55th-minute effort wide from inside the box after Hull struggled to clear their lines.
It was no surprise when the hosts did take the lead and no surprise to see Kesler-Hayden involved. He stormed into the box before pulling the ball back for Potts to power a shot past Ivor Pandur.
Hull had lost a lot of impetus after a decent start but did come close when Mason Burstow's 69th-minute cross-cum-shot skidded just past a post via the fingertips of Woodman.
Despite their struggles to win at Deepdale, Preston had only lost once in their last seven matches and do possess a competitive edge in Championship matches. They sat deep and were compact against a team struggling for form.
Burstow did fire a tame shot into the hands of Woodman in stoppage time and the Preston keeper did well to hold Matty Jacobs' downward header shortly afterwards but it was light work at the end of a relatively easy day for the stopper.
The managers
Preston's Paul Heckingbottom:
"We weren't too bothered if (Hull) did have the ball but I think we gave them too much respect at the start of the game.
"I felt we were just slightly off. We didn't quite get to the ball and we were a little bit behind the press.
"We stood off them a little bit too much, or that might be credit to them, but then, as the first half wore on, we got better and had our moments but we needed to up it in the second half and I thought we did.
"Until the goal, we were building momentum which was really pleasing and then the goal was fantastic from our point of view. I'm really pleased with it. Then we had to defend well and we managed the game really well."
Hull's Ruben Selles:
"We created situations to score at least one goal and then in one moment we went 1-0 down and never recovered in terms of the score. I think we were competitive enough.
"We created situations, it's not just the situation with Regan after five minutes. We created other situations and we need to make it count, but we created the situations so we just need to work on the details.
"You come away from difficult games in difficult competitions and first of all we need to be competitive and second of all we need to win football matches.
"Without being competitive we are not going to win games. We need to continue developing that competitiveness and in games like today, when we have the opportunities, we have to make it count and then we'll be in a better place.
"We have to try to not make excuses. We know we can do things. Now we have to do it to the very end."
