Alfie Devine scored twice as Preston ended a seven-game winless streak with a 3-1 Championship victory over Stoke at Deepdale.
The 21-year-old Tottenham loanee cancelled out a fourth-minute volley from Sorba Thomas with a composed finish in the 15th minute and completed his brace with a delightful dink for Preston’s third on the hour mark, just minutes after Milutin Osmajic had headed them in front with his eighth goal of a turbulent season.
Stoke fans were lively from the off – filling three-quarters of the away end – and they were ecstatic when Thomas acrobatically slammed Junior Tchamadeu’s cross into the floor and past Daniel Iversen for an early opener.
It was a nightmare start for the out-of-form hosts, however, they bounced back with aplomb 10 minutes later when Stoke over-committed bodies forward.
The visitors left every outfield player in Preston’s half as Devine ran onto Andrew Moran’s ball from inside his own half before squeezing a shot under the glove of Tommy Simkin to level proceedings.
North End needed that and could have taken the lead in the 23rd minute as Liam Lindsay headed over Devine’s corner from an appetising central position.
Visiting supporters were up in arms after 34 minutes as Ben Whiteman clattered Thomas on the halfway line, with Preston looking light in defence, though referee Farai Hallam opted for a yellow card despite calls for a red, given the studs-up nature of the challenge.
Simkin could have done better with the opener and nearly handed Preston a second as he misjudged the flight of Andrew Hughes’ cross and the 21-year-old was counting his lucky stars as Osmajic failed to head on target with the goal gaping.
It was one of the best halves of football Preston have had at Deepdale since the turn of the year but Stoke almost equalised early in the second period as Million Manhoef looked set to stab a loose ball past Iversen until Andrija Vukcevic’s incredible last-ditch block.
After surviving that scare, Paul Heckingbottom’s side soon got a deserved third in the 57th minute with Osmajic making amends for his poor first-half miss by nodding home Lewis Dobbin’s pinpoint cross from close-range.
Two quickly became three for the rampant hosts as Osjamic turned provider, slipping Devine in behind a Potters defence that were all at sea and the on-loan Tottenham man delightfully clipped the ball over the advancing Simpkin to bag his eighth goal of the season for the Lilywhites.
Mark Robins’ men looked vulnerable to the counter attack throughout and the early second-half substitutes Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, Sam Gallagher and Jun-Ho Bae left them looking even more defensively disjointed, allowing Preston to create that two-goal cushion and see the game out.
The managers
Preston’s Paul Heckingbottom:
“Alfie [Devine’s] a good player and a good lad. I don’t think we’ve seen the best of him, as good as he’s played. There’s more to come. He needs pushing but with that as well, you need to understand, he’s played a lot of minutes in this league and it’s tough.
“You’re a young boy, you have peaks and troughs, but where we need to get him is in that consistency of performance because he’s got the ability, he’s got the brain, and he’s got the talent to affect the games on the pitch.”
Stoke’s Mark Robins:
“It was poor to start with. We just didn’t start with the intensity that we needed to play with and played without any quality.
“We’ve given them chances to get the ball in our box. Not the way we wanted to start the game but they put you under pressure with the way that they play so you have to deal with it.
“We ended up getting our first decent move down the right and Sorba [Thomas] scores. There was an opportunity there to win this game really well tonight and that’s the biggest disappointment.
“We’ve let the supporters down and we know we have.”
