Shrewsbury Town 0-1 Preston North End

A second-half own goal by Shrewsbury's Ryan Woods was enough for Preston to win at the Greenhous Meadow and close the gap on the top two in League One.

Woods diverted Iain Hume's cross into his own net 10 minutes from time.

It settled an uneventful game, with neither side able to dominate or cause major problems for their opposition.

The win put Simon Grayson's North End only four points off second spot, while the hosts remain in trouble after a fourth consecutive home defeat.

Shrewsbury duo Tom Eaves and Jon Taylor were denied by Preston keeper Declan Rudd in the first half, while David Buchanan shot wide for the visitors and teenage midfielder Josh Brownhill saw a volley deflected wide.

Joe Garner failed to find the target from Neil Kilkenny's corner as Preston chased a winner after the break, but North End were rarely troubled as they held on for an eighth away victory of the League One campaign.

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Shrewsbury Town manager Graham Turner told BBC Radio Shropshire:

"You can't blame young Ryan Woods. Sometimes these things happen. When results are going wrong you don't have that luck.

"He's obviously got to deal with a difficult ball going across the face of our goal and you'd hope he'd deal with it a little better than he did.

"There were times when we played some decent football and got the ball into good areas but, at the moment, we obviously can't score.

"Sometimes you need a little ricochet or the ball to drop for you, or even a penalty maybe, but it's not happened for us."

Preston manager Simon Grayson told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"We've said many times that you have to do whatever it takes to win a match.

"In the first half, we weren't good enough. We were second best when we had possession and when we didn't have possession.

"We knew we had to up it, we got back into the game, and we've got the firepower on the bench to try and change it around.

"Obviously that was a big factor in the end result for us."