Preston North End 2-1 Hull City: Lilywhites boost play-off bid with victory

Paul Gallagher fired home from the spot

Two goals in four minutes by Paul Gallagher and Alan Browne enabled Preston to come from a goal down and beat Hull to get their play-off bid back on course.

Hull took the lead five minutes before half-time through Mallik Wilks' third goal for the club, but the visitors saw their lead disappear in four second-half minutes.

Darnell Fisher was brought down inside the box and Gallagher made no mistake in firing home the equaliser from the spot.

Then second-half substitute Browne met Jayden Stockley's cross from the left to head Preston into a lead they protected to the final whistle.

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Victory saw Preston bounce back from a rare home defeat to Millwall last week and extend their cushion inside the play-offs to three points.

But for a while there was frustration at Deepdale as Wilks opened the scoring, meeting Callum's Elder's cross from a short-corner to guide a header into the corner of the net.

Preston manager Alex Neil conceded his positive substitutions contributed to last Saturday's loss, but this time his changes had the desired effect.

With 25 minutes remaining, Fisher, back after a hamstring injury, was brought down in the box by Josh Magennis and Gallagher drilled in to level.

And the comeback was completed four minutes later as Stockley's cross found Browne who, less than 15 minutes after being brought on, headed in his fifth goal of the season.

Preston North End manager Alex Neil told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"What I thought we lacked in the first half was a bit of bravery. When we did move the ball we moved it too slowly, when we tried to play it forward, instead of playing into spaces we were just turning it because there's no risk attached to that pass. I thought we moved it far, far better in the second half.

"If you watch Fulham, Brentford, West Brom, any of the top teams, they go and outplay teams. If we resort to just banging it forward and hopefully playing in their half, it's not going to be enough.

"I try and remove the performance from the result. Because I believe if you play well enough, often enough, you will get your results. If you're not playing well enough, even though you're scraping wins, you'll get found out."

Hull City head coach Grant McCann told BBC Radio Humberside:

"I thought the performance, for an away performance, was good on the whole. For probably 10 or 15 minutes they upped the ante a little bit.

"We switched off for the second goal [and] we had spoken at half time about people getting in between us and being a bit more compact.

"The first goal is embarrassing, really, the way Fisher has thrown himself to the floor is scary. We're frustrated because up to that point we were largely in control. After that, the [second] goal is good from their point of view but a poor one from us."