Simon Grayson rues late promotion heartache
Monday 4 May 2015 10:34, UK
Manager Simon Grayson admitted that it may have been an attack of nerves that cost his Preston side the chance of automatic promotion after the 1-0 defeat at Colchester United.
The result condemned North End to the play-offs as their 18-match unbeaten run came to a shuddering halt at the most inopportune moment; their defeat allowed MK Dons, 5-1 winners over Yeovil, to leapfrog them into the second automatic promotion place.
Chris Porter missed a second-half penalty for Colchester but George Moncour kept his nerve to strike the vital goal eight minutes from time having been set up by Porter, latching on to a lay-off to fire home the winner from 16 yards.
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Manager Simon Grayson said: "We didn't play out normal game. We had too many bad errors, players making the wrong decisions, you could see that in the second-half, at both ends of the pitch. You have to give credit to Colchester they had a right go but we did not play as well as we could and whether that's down to nerves or bottle it's hard to say.
"As you can imagine the dressing room is pretty devastated but we have still got a second chance and we will go again on Thursday."
Colchester United manager Tony Humes was delighted after his side guaranteed their League One survival with the nerve-shredding victory.
He said: The players have a never-say-die attitude and they have shown that for so many games now. The players have kept believing and it showed out there today. We thought we might have blown it when we missed the penalty but the players kept going and got their reward in the end. I can't say enough about them for their commitment and effort - and a little bit of quality as well.
"We said at the outset that it was important we did our job. Once we got the goal, we started looking at where we were. Credit to the players, they kept going they got us out of the situation."
Watch the first leg of the League One play-offs on Sky Sports 5HD from 7.30pm
