Preston North End boss delivers verdict on what went wrong for his side in Sunderland defeat

Ryan Lowe praised Sunderland's game management and said his side only had themselves to blame for allowing their opponent's key attacking players too much space in the first half.

Goals from Alex Pritchard and Nazariy Rusyn gave Sunderland a 2-0 lead at half time and though the second half was a poor spectacle, Lowe said that owed much to the host's sensible approach.

"What I will say is that we can't allow that much space to have the shot," Lowe said.

"And then the second one, we spoke about it all week. I thought Brad Potts did a really good job but the ball goes in the box, their goalie catches it and we leave one of the best players in the division on his own. Even two tackles couldn't bring him down, we knew we needed to lock that out because that was the danger.

"2-0 at half time in this division, it's a tough scoreline to come back from and it's more or less game over. I asked the lads for a bit of belief in the second half, to get on the ball and be brave. We've had a large amount of possession and we've kept a good team at bay, but we weren't clinical enough. Overall, when you concede two avoidable goals, it's disappointing. It was only six days ago that we were beating Leeds United, and then we've had a lot of possession and crosses against Sheffield Wednesday and lost. Same again today.

"In saying that, we can't give two goals away. I can't criticise the players, they've given everything, but we lack quality. We took the game to them in the second half and their crowd were getting frustrated when they weren't coming up to us at times, but it's well done by them - it's game management. They didn't need another goal, did they? If we'd got a goal it might have been a little frantic, but we didn't, we've got to do more. Once they got two goals, they didn't need to come out. As long they were solid and resolute then they were fine."

The defeat saw Preston slip to 13th in the Championship table.