Daniel Farke was delighted at the response of his Leeds team after their 1-1 draw with Preston in the Sky Bet Championship.
Substitute Jack Whatmough was brought on to steady the ship for the hosts but he inadvertently turned Dan James’ cross into his own net in the third minute of injury time, under pressure from Mateo Joseph, who got a slight flick on the initial cross.
Brad Potts had put Preston ahead in the 23rd minute after excellent play from Milutin Osmajic but the late goal denied Paul Heckingbottom’s men a hard-fought win.
“If you can’t win it then you have to make sure you don’t lose it,” Leeds manager Farke said. “When you see the story of the game, we didn’t start that well until the final 20 minutes or whatever as we tried to push for the equaliser. They were defending really well.
“To score the goal in added time, also in this way, after we took so much risk and made so many changes in the game feels like a valuable and priceless point, especially in an away game.
“It’s a good point on the board in a tough place. I think Preston defended really well.”
The former Norwich manager added that he was frustrated at his team’s performance early on and put down their struggles in the first half down to an over-eagerness going forward.
“I think we started a bit slow because we were pushing to create chances and push them back,” he added. “But we allowed them to have one chance and sometimes one chance can be decisive.
“When we lost the ball on the edge of the other box, our counter-pressing and our willingness to sprint back to defend the counter could have been better.
“I was not pleased with the first 20 minutes but I was pleased with how we reacted.”
The draw means it is now six games unbeaten for Preston but the manner of the point left Heckingbottom frustrated once again as he saw the opportunity for back-to-back wins, after their victory at Cardiff, slip away.
“It’s frustrating because of the timing of the goal,” the Preston manager said.
“We know it was a late goal. For the way the players defended, it’s sickening but Leeds threw everything at us and we had to stand strong. We did [stand strong], Freddie [Woodman] had to deal with things from about 25-to-30 yards and any cross in the box we dealt with.
“The goal is probably what Leeds needed today to beat us. It was a messy goal, unfortunate from our point of view, but you have to give them credit for the way they’ve stuck at it.”
Heckingbottom felt Preston’s display read like a familiar narrative: close but not quite close enough.
“Performance wise, anybody watching us [will not be able to understand] how we’ve not won games,” he added. “Looking at our average of xG and xG against, we’ve been outperforming Sheffield United who are at the top of the league.
“[Osmajic’s] pass [for the goal] was unbelievable. You can see the opportunities and positions that we got into in the second half and what let us down was the final pass so we didn’t get any more efforts of quality on Leeds’ goal in the second half.”
