NEIL: DON’T SELL HUGILL AND LILYWHITES CAN PUSH HIGHER
Preston look up as Boro are held
PRESTON boss Alex Neil has warned his paymasters not to ruin a promising start to the season by flogging star striker Jordan Hugill.
A dominant draw at big boys Middlesbrough left the Lilywhites seventh in the Championship with four clean sheets in five games.
And while he refused to comment on reports that Reading have lodged an £8m bid for the hulking 25-year-old, Neil sent a crystal clear message to his board.
“It’s not as if anybody’s got a gun to our heads,” said the Scot. “We don’t have to sell. We don’t want to sell.
“Our side’s not going to get broken up. I won’t do that. We want to have a right go this season. If anything, we want to add to the squad.
“It’s pretty simple. If we want to go and achieve something this year, we have to keep our best players. If you sell those players, that becomes a lot more difficult. It’s common sense.”
Neil’s determination to keep his squad intact is understandable after a performance laced with power, panache and unfortunately for them - profligacy.
But for the heroics of Darren Randolph in the Middlesbrough goal, Preston would have won handsomely, a fact not even Garry Monk dared dispute.
“I’ve said a couple of times this month that we didn’t get what we deserved,” said the Boro boss. “Out there, we got more than we deserved.”
For all the attacking talents of Britt Assombalonga, Rudy Gestede and Patrick Bamford, the home side were strangely anaemic.
Sloppy on the ball, second to the scraps; 82 minutes had elapsed before sub Stewart Downing registered their first and only - shot on target.
“We didn’t do the basics well enough,” explained Monk. “Preston were on top of us. Their aggression, their tackles, their passing, their desire - it was a level above ours and that leads to losing control of the game.
“You have to earn the right to play and we didn’t. We’ve done those things extremely well in previous games, which is disappointing. The only positive is that we came out with a point.”
Boro’s resilience deserves credit, but so does Preston’s adventure. The away side played on the front foot, harassing their opponents into mistakes and exploiting positional weaknesses.
Fabio, in particular, was guilty of failing to track back, allowing Sean Maguire free reign down the Preston right.
Ben Pearson tackled like a threshing machine. Hugill showed why he is so coveted, winning pretty much everything in the air and on the deck.
Tom Barkhuizen hit a post, replays revealing a fine save from Randolph. The former West Ham stopper then denied Paul Huntingdon before producing the save of the match, a point-blank stop on the line from Barkhuizen’s header.
“Darren made a couple of important saves at important times,” said Monk, whose highly-fancied side have won two of their first five. “He was a big part of why we got that result.”
In fairness, Preston wasted openings rather than clear chances, Boro’s back four doing a stellar job of repelling the bombardment. Nevertheless, it would have been an injustice had Downing’s late effort found the bottom corner rather than Chris Maxwell’s left hand.
“I think if any team deserved to win, it was us,” added Neil. “We had more possession, created better opportunities. The only disappointment was that we didn’t get the goal.
“It’s really frustrating. We had enough in the game to win it - there’s no question about that. It wasn’t like we just game here and sat back. We kept the ball and we used it well.”