Alfie Devine scored twice and Preston beat Stoke 3-1 at Deepdale in the Championship, ending their winning streak at seven.
The 21-year-old Tottenham loanee canceled out Solva Tomas’ volley in the fourth minute with a composed finish in the 15th minute, just minutes after Milutin Osmajic headed in his turbulent eighth goal of the season, and completed his brace with a sublime strike for Preston’s third goal just over an hour later.
The Stoke fans were lively from the off, filling three-quarters of the away end and celebrating when Thomas acrobatically smashed Junior Chamadou’s cross into the floor past Daniel Iversen to take the lead.
It was a nightmare start for the hosts, who were in poor form, but they calmly bounced back after 10 minutes when Stoke overcommitted their bodies forward.
The visitors left all their outfield players in Preston’s half, and Devine leveled the score by running onto Andrew Moran’s ball from inside his own half and firing a shot under the glove of Tommy Simkin.
North End needed it and could have taken the lead in the 23rd minute when Liam Lindsay headed in Devine’s corner from a tantalizing central position.
The visiting supporters cheered when Ben Whiteman hammered Thomas on the halfway line after 34 minutes, and although Preston’s defending was nimble, referee Farai Hallam opted for a yellow card despite calling for a red given the stud-up nature of the match.
Simkin could have done better with his opener, but Preston misjudged Andrew Hughes’ cross and almost gave away a split second. The 21-year-old was counting his luck as Osmajic failed to get his header on target with the goal empty.
It was one of the best first half’s of football Preston have played at Deepdale this year, but Stoke almost equalized early in the second period until Andrija Vukcevic’s stunning final block as Million Manhoof looked set to poke a spilled ball past Iversen.
After overcoming that scare, Paul Heckingbottom’s side quickly grabbed a deserved third point in the 57th minute, making up for their first-half failure with Osmazic nodding home Lewis Dobbin’s pinpoint cross from close range.
Two points soon turned into three as Ojamyk turned provider, slipping Devine in behind the Potters defense, which was all glued to the sea, and the Tottenham loanee happily clipped the ball over the advancing Simpkin to score the Lilywhites’ eighth goal of the season.
Mark Robins’ side looked vulnerable to counter-attacks throughout, and substitutes Jesloun Lac-Saki, Sam Gallagher and Juno Bae looked even more disjointed defensively early in the second half, allowing Preston to create a two-goal cushion and see the game go.
managers
Mr Paul Heckingbottom of Preston:
“Alfie (Devine) is a good player, a good player. I don’t think we’ve seen the best of him that he’s played so far. There’s more to come. He needs to push, but he also needs to understand that. He’s played a lot of minutes in this league and it’s difficult.”
“You are a young lad, you have your ups and downs, but what we need in him is consistency of performance because he has the ability, he has the brains and he has the talent to influence the game on the pitch.”
Mark Robbins of Stokes:
“We got off to a bad start. We didn’t start with the intensity we needed and played without quality.
“We gave them chances to put the ball into our box. It wasn’t the start of the game that we wanted, but the way they played put us under pressure and we have to deal with that.
“In the end we made our first decent move down the right side and Solva (Thomas) scored. That’s the biggest disappointment because we had a real chance to win this game tonight.”
“We have let our supporters down and we know that.”
