Ali McCann frustrated by the way Preston North End fell away towards the end of the Championship season as they missed out on the play-offs

PNE had gone on a spectacular run of one defeat in 11 games to catapult themselves firmly into the play-off picture as they turned the home straight in the campaign. They faced an Easter weekend that could have defined their season, instead they won home and away to keep their hopes alive with five to go.

From their final five games of the season, Preston picked up a solitary point, that coming from a 90th minute equaliser at home to Blackburn Rovers. They lost their other four games, to Millwall, Swansea City, Sheffield United and Sunderland on the final day, as the Black Cats sneaked into the top six.

McCann said: "To be in the mix with five games to go, we were really happy with it. But when it came to crunch time we fell short, which is frustrating. It's a long season, the Championship, it's hard to keep a consistent run going for weeks and weeks on end.

"It's why the teams that finish up there are the ones that have been on those runs, it's really difficult and we have been disappointed for the fans in all that, that it petered out the way that it did. It's one of those things, we'll go again next season.”

McCann is backing his side and his teammates to push for the top six again next season but admits that their run in over the final five games was a tough one.

He doesn’t look back too much at it, instead, he’s looking forward.

He said: “At the end of that run we had those two tough away games in Millwall and Swansea and it's hard to come away from those with maximum points.

"It's one of those, you can look back and say we should have done this or should have done that but it's hindsight isn't it? It's disappointing.

"We'll go again, we just know that throughout the squad we have the quality that is needed, hopefully we can go one better next year.”