Heckingbottom hopes to take advantage of cup exit

Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom says the early exit from the EFL Cup means they can focus on their priority - the Championship.

The Lilywhites suffered a stoppage-time defeat at home to Wrexham in round two at Deepdale on Tuesday night, having led 2-1 after an hour, leaving Heckingbottom frustrated and wishing they had just handed the Red Dragons a walkover win.

He told BBC Radio Lancashire: "I'm frustrated because we wanted to win the game, we've conceded three goals but Jack [Walton] has not had a save to make, we've got a couple of injuries and it's a night I could have probably done without.

"I go home thinking we may as well have just given them a bye."

"I enjoy cup games, not all managers say that," he added. "I like to see what we can do, where it might take you, it's a different prize, but we do treat it differently - the league is the important thing, but you do feel like you miss out when you get knocked out of the cup.

"We have to make sure we use it to our advantage in the league and prepare properly for league games."

Lewis Dobbin came off at half-time on his debut while second-half substitute Milutin Osmajic left the field after just five minutes having suffered a rib injury.

"Dobbin has not had a pre-season we're going to have to work hard with him, diligently over the next few weeks," Heckingbottom said. "Mily should be alright."

Heckingbottom revealed Brad Potts and Will Keane are getting closer to a return but were not yet back in training, though Mads Frokjaer is scheduled to resume training on Thursday.

"We've got to make sure it's a blessing now when we recover well and we capitalise on not having that accumulation of games which we got last season," Heckingbottom added.

"We'll learn, recover now in the next couple of days because from what I've seen of Portsmouth it's going to be a really tough, frantic game down there."