Blackburn continued their climb up the Sky Bet Championship table as they earned a fourth win in five with a 2-1 Lancashire derby victory over Preston.
Thanks to goals from Lewis Miller and Andri Gudjohnsen, Valerien Ismael’s men – who lost seven of their first 10 league games – moved up to 16th, six points outside the play-off places.
And in doing so, they prevented their local rivals from seizing the opportunity to move into the automatic promotion places.
Despite energy and openness of the first 10 minutes promising so much, there was little to shout about for much of the first half at Deepdale, aside from a strong double save from Blackburn goalkeeper Aynsley Pears half an hour in, when he first denied Michael Smith, then Andrew Hughes.
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A whirlwind end to the first half as Preston equalise instantly after Blackburn took the lead.
But the game sparked into life just before the break. After a series of openings, Rovers took what was a deserved lead when Lewis Miller – fresh from international duty with Australia – powered in a header after being picked out by Ryan Hedges’ inswinging corner.
The joy was short-lived. Within 80 seconds, Spurs loanee Alfie Devine had been released by Aston Villa loanee Lewis Dobbin, with Sean McLoughlin unable to hook his shot – taken while off balance – away before it crossed the line.
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Andri Gudjohnsen headed in at the back post to give Blackburn a deserved lead against Preston in the East Lancashire derby
Blackburn grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck after the break and re-established their lead just after the hour when Ryoya Morishita clipped a free-kick to the far post, where Gudjohnsen – son of former Chelsea frontman Eidur – ghosted across to head in at the near post.
They were denied a penalty when substitute Makhtar Gueye was pushed in the face by Andrew Hughes after two exquisite touches to bring the ball under his control.
Other than an acrobatic, but miscued, volley from Devine and a powerful drive from Thierry Small, which was blocked by debutant George Pratt, Preston offered little and fell to a first league defeat since October 21.
The managers
Preston’s Paul Heckingbottom:
“We conceded two really poor goals from our point of view, two set-plays. If you’re going to concede two set-plays in a Championship game, it’s going to be an uphill battle. That’s one reason. We didn’t score when we were on top early on. Put those two things together and it’s going to be a tough, tough game.
“To be fair, even when we went behind, we got back in the game and got what we deserved in the first half.
“In the second half, we huffed and puffed, but I felt, once we conceded another poor goal, we panicked a little bit, lost our shape in our attempts to get back into the game and made the game a little bit too open.
“That game’s not too different from a lot we’ve had this season. We’ve just scored when we’ve been on top and then it’s a different type of game.”
Blackburn’s Valerien Ismael:
“After an international break, there’s always a lot of energy when you restart the Championship and we were strong, solid and, after we came into the game in the last 20 minutes of the first half, this was exactly what we wanted until the end of the game.
“In the first minute in the second half, we were really into the game on the front foot again and we knew we had to restart again. I liked the improvement in possession in the opponents’ half; we were less sloppy than the last two weeks, more controlled, more focused, had more purpose in the final third. I think it’s a step ahead for us.”
“I think it was a decent win today. A very strong away performance again. A great evening for us.”
