PRESTON North End boss Simon Grayson felt his side deserved more after watching their six-game unbeaten run ended by Blackburn Rovers in yesterday’s Deepdale derby.
The Lilywhites went close in the 10th minute through Paul Gallagher but their next and final shot on target did not arrive until midway through the second half when another Rovers old boy Joe Garner halved the deficit.
By that stage Paul Lambert’s team were two up thanks to a fortuitous 31st-minute own goal from goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, which ended Preston’s club record-equalling sequence of six successive clean sheets, and a 52nd-minute penalty from Jordan Rhodes.
Rovers looked in complete control and cries of Olé rained down from the away end where the 5,486 away supporters were housed but their mood changed after Blackburn-born Garner scored his first goal of the season.
The Lilywhites, backed by their biggest crowd of the campaign, threw ball after ball into the box in a bid to rescue a point but they could no way through and their woes worsened in injury-time when defender Bailey Wright was sent off for two bookings within the space of seven minutes.
Grayson, who made 40 appearances for Rovers between 1999 and 2002, said after the 2-1 loss: “I think we deserved more.
“When you look back over the course of the game, the least we deserved was a point.
“There wasn’t really much in the game in the first half, it was a typical derby where you are fighting for possession and tackles are going in.
“We suffered the disappointment of conceding a strange goal; the ball was ricocheting around the box and it hit Jordan Pickford.
“At half-time we talked about the need to up the tempo a bit more but then early on, we conceded the second goal. We have no complaints about it being a penalty.
“We responded really well and had Blackburn camped in their own half.
“Joe got his first goal of the season, which lifted us, the place was rocking and we were on the front foot.
“But we couldn’t get the equaliser. We wanted a bit of quality and guile with the final pass or cross and unfortunately didn't have it.
“The players you would have expected to have picked people out, didn’t do it.”
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