Stoke City 0-0 Preston North End: Harry Souttar sent off for Potters in dull draw
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Harry Souttar was sent off late in the game
Stoke defender Harry Souttar was sent off as the Potters were held to a dour goalless draw by Preston.
Souttar was shown the red card with three minutes remaining after bringing down North End's Alan Browne as he raced through on goal.
Earlier, Preston's Andrew Hughes went close to breaking the deadlock when his second-half free-kick struck the post.
Potters striker Steven Fletcher found the net soon afterwards after being found by Nick Powell, but the effort was disallowed for offside.
It was an afternoon to forget for Souttar, who missed chances to score before being dismissed.
He headed wide from crosses by Sam Clucas and Tommy Smith.
The visitors defended well and frustrated their opponents, whose play-off hopes faded some time ago.
And Browne might well have broken the deadlock had Souttar not fouled him in the incident that saw the Stoke man red-carded.
Stoke manager Michael O'Neill:
"We should have scored and didn't. We didn't get across people enough in the box and we needed to find something to go 1-0 up."Preston made it more difficult for us in the second half. We didn't cause them enough problems with the decisions we made."We lost the ball in bad areas and got picked off more by them. We gave away free-kicks on the edge of the box and gave them hope and belief."I'm disappointed not to see us take more from the game. It's frustrating to be held to a 0-0."Preston North End interim head coach Frankie McAvoy:
"We have four games to go and have to try to win as many of the games left as we can."There are still teams that can catch us if we don't win our games and we have to treat every game on its merit."We will not get sucked into how many points we need. We can't control what other teams do."We have control over the games we play and that is what we need to focus on."