North End have had to claw their way back from behind on several occasions this season, and having done so twice in one week, Alex Neil believes it’s no coincidence that his side have the knack of turning it around.
Speaking to iFollow after the game, the manager believes his side’s never say die attitude is paramount on the occasions when North End have come from behind and won the game, just like they did today.
He said: “We’re a resilient team and we’re never beaten until the game’s over. If I’m being honest I was disappointed first half. We didn’t play well enough first half and I separate performance from results quite a lot because I think the better we play in terms of performances, you’ll pick up more points.
“I thought in the first half however that we didn’t pick up second balls enough and we went too direct too early for me. I had a good chat at half-time about how we normally play and the way we want to go about it and to be fair to the lads for the whole of the season they’ve responded and I thought the second half performance was excellent and it’s meant that we’ve won the game.
“There’s very few games this year where we’ve played poorly and won the game. We’re at that stage now that because we’ve got a method of how we want to play, we need to carry it out and pass the ball well. Our passing first half was poor and we needed to pick up second balls better. We didn’t keep the ball at the top end of the pitch. But credit to the lads - in the second half we did the exact opposite. We showed a bit more bravery in terms of receiving the ball in the right areas and there was some really good performances second half.
“I said to them at half-time they’ve been really poor and the fact it was 1-1 was excellent as far as we were concerned. Now we’ve got a great opportunity of playing better and winning the game in the second half and that’s exactly what we’ve done. “
Two wins in two games in less than seven days have meant that the Lilywhites have brought their way back into contention of a Play-Off spot after a difficult start to the month, and the gaffer divulge to iFollowPNE after the game what his, and his side’s mindset will be going into the final three games of the season.
“Whatever happens elsewhere - if we don’t win - it doesn’t matter because we’re not going to get near the Play-Offs if we don't come out with three points.
“What we’ve managed to do is win our last two games and strangely enough, I actually think we probably played better over the three games prior to that then the two games we won but that’s football for you and it’s a strange game. It’s down to three points at the moment, we’ll try and win the next one and see where that takes us.
“The fans were fantastic as well and there’s nothing better when they come down, they have a great day, we get the win and everybody can go home happy.”
Watch Alex’s full interview on iFollowPNE now.