Preston North End boss Ryan Lowe has hailed defender Greg Cunningham after an ‘immense’ performance against Huddersfield Town.
North End headed off to the John Smith’s Stadium on Tuesday evening, seeking three points after two defeats in a row.
PNE had plenty of the ball in the first half but didn’t look all that threatening before picking it up a little in the second half.
The winner came from a set piece as Ben Whiteman’s superb delivery was headed home by Greg Cunningham in front of the travelling North End fans.
PNE looked for a second to kill it off but couldn’t quite find it with Alvaro Fernandez firing over from close range.
North End saw the game out well and will have been happy with the three points to take back to Lancashire.
Cunningham was the unlikely goalscoring hero and it came as he played in a role few could have predicted.
The Irishman lined up as the middle centre back in Lowe’s three-man defence, shifting across from the left-sided role we are used to seeing him play.
That meant Jordan Storey and Andrew Hughes were able to stay in their usual positions with Cunningham coming back into the side for Bambo Diaby.
You usually associate the middle centre back with being strong, tall and dominant but Cunningham was there more to play out from the back.
Cunningham was able to get on the ball in the central area and play angled passes into centre backs, wing backs and midfielders, getting PNE moving forward.
Lowe has now told iFollow that he felt Cunningham was ‘immense’ at Huddersfield and put him in that central role to try and aid North End’s ability on the ball.
Lowe added that Cunningham was ‘fantastic’ and joked about a comparison to AC Milan legend Franco Baresi having worked on the approach in training on Monday.
“He was immense,” said Lowe. “I spoke to Greg on Monday and said ‘have you ever played in the middle of a three?’ because Bambo obviously played his first full 90 minutes and we have to be careful because he hasn’t played many games.”
“I thought Greg could get us ticking and get us playing, he was fantastic. I said to him ‘you’re gonna play in there, you were like Franco Baresi in the patterns of play when we were working’, he was solid, he got us going,’ he added.