SEAN GREGAN had his hands on his knees and stared in the ground in disbelief as Preston made it five league games without a win this season after their 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Wolves.

The skipper stood in the centre circle as the final whistle blew as a tough week at Deepdale ended with more misery.

On Wednesday, top striker Jon Macken handed in a transfer request and it's thought Saturday's opponents Wolves will make a £4.5m offer this week for the 24-year-old who missed the match with a hamstring strain.

And then goalkeeper David Lucas spilled a Lee Naylor free kick and Joleon Lescott only had to stick his foot out to tap the ball into the back of the net on the hour for the winner.

"There is no point dwelling on it. It is one of those things. Everyone saw what happened and that is the way it goes sometimes," said manager David Moyes who though was pleased with an improved performance from North End.

He felt they played similarly to last season - when they reached the First Division play-off final - especially with David Healy and Richard Cresswell looking lively up front together.

"I thought we played really well in the first half. We probably should have been more than one goal up at the break. I think that was our downfall.

"I'm sure it will come back again. There were a lot of positives from the game but obviously we are disappointed with the result. The performance though was an improvement.

"But we have to get on with it, take it on the chin as they say, and bounce back and I am sure we will."

North End were frustrated as they dominated the first half with Healy, who scored for Northern Ireland midweek, unlucky to see a shot crash against the crossbar.

They took the lead on 33 minutes when Graham Alexander's corner was flicked on and Chris Lucketti, the £750,000 buy from Huddersfield a couple of weeks ago, scored his first goal for his new club with a strong header.

But it went wrong almost immediately after the restart as Wolves came out and played 'a dirty game' as manager Dave Jones said.

"We weren't Wolves in the first half and I told the lads so. We were all over the show.

"I told them we had to get back to dirty football. That is get the tackles in,close them down, defend high up the pitch, and I feel in the second half we reversed the roles on them as that is what they did in the first half."

Substitute Andy Sinton linked with Kevin Muscat and Sinton chipped the ball from 15 yards out into the top corner of the net three minutes after the restart leaving Lucas with no chance.

Naylor then denied Lucketti on the line before Wolves scored their fortunate winner.

Preston will hope to turn their league form round at home to Millwall next week although they make the trip to Tranmere in the second round of the Worthington Cup first on Tuesday.

And last seasons goal machine Macken by then could be a Wolves player.

"We came in for Macken and Moyes said no. He is not our player but football changes," was all Jones would say on the matter.