Preston North End vs Cardiff City. Sky Bet Championship.
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Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Preston North End and Cardiff Cityat Deepdale on Saturday | Karlan Grant and Ike Ugbo score to earn stoppage-time turnaround win for Bluebirds.
Saturday 25 November 2023 19:18, UK
Karlan Grant and Ike Ugbo both scored in stoppage time as Cardiff snatched a dramatic 2-1 victory at 10-man Preston.
Grant bundled the ball over the line in the 96th-minute to equalise, before Ugbo's excellent glancing header three minutes later sparked pandemonium in the away end.
Milutin Osmajić's 48th-minute goal put Preston ahead but the hosts were on the backfoot for much of the second half owing to Robbie Brady's red card.
The midfielder was shown a second yellow just four minutes after Osmajić's goal but Preston did brilliantly to keep Cardiff at bay, only to see their hard work undone in the final minutes.
The result moved Cardiff up to sixth in the table, just a place and a point behind Preston.
The visitors carved out the better chances in a scrappy opening 45 minutes, with Preston goalkeeper Freddie Woodman called into action to deny Bluebirds duo Manolis Siopis and Perry Ng.
Woodman continued to be the key player once again for Preston before the break, as the hosts' No 1 produced a diving stop to keep out an angled strike from former Lilywhites star Callum Robinson.
However, despite struggling to make any inroads in the opening period, the contest turned on its head after a bizarre moment on 48 minutes, as Osmajic prodded home the breakthrough.
Mark McGuinness' loose touch presented the Montenegro international with a chance to race in behind the visitors' defence and he kept his cool to steer the ball past Runar Runarsson.
Despite looking well placed to seize the initiative from Osmajic's strike, Preston's positivity was quickly checked just four minutes later, as veteran winger Brady was shown a second yellow card after clipping Yakou Meite in midfield.
Brady's sending-off completely changed the tempo of the game for Preston in the final half hour as manager Ryan Lowe rotated his side to try to dig in for the win.
With a player advantage in the closing stages, Woodman again came to the fore for Preston, to deny Meite from distance.
As Cardiff continued to probe, Grant conjured up a brilliant opening, with his rasping drive getting the better of Woodman, before clipping the outside of the post.
Cardiff boss Erol Bulut threw on a flurry of attacking substitutes in the final 20 minutes to try to force an equaliser, and the changes eventually wrested the contest away from Preston.
Pinball inside the Preston box, deep into nine minutes of added time, allowed Grant the chance to level with a scuffed effort, before Ugbo got away from his marker at a corner to win the match in the 99th minute.
Preston's Ryan Lowe:
"I'm disappointed for the boys; they are on the floor in the changing room. But, I am proud of them for what they did in the game, for large parts of that game that is, particularly having to play with 10 men in the second half.
"We did well, apart from those two moments where there was a bit of luck for them and misfortune for us.
"I cannot fault the lads for what they have put into the match. To lose in the 99th minute, when they put everything on the line, I am so proud of the lads as I always am. It is a result that's a kick in the teeth at the moment.
"But, we come back in tomorrow and recover, analyse the things we could have done a bit better and pick ourselves up. There were parts of the game, even with 10 men, that I was really pleased with. But, it's disappointing to not get any points."
Cardiff's Erol Bulut:
"It's a very important win for us here today. From the first minute of the match until right up until the end of the game, my players showed the character that they needed to.
"It's not easy to play against 10 players in this type of situation but we reacted in the right way. Sometimes it can be more difficult than with 11 players, but we did everything right in the game. We kept the ball and tried to create chances throughout the game and got our reward.
"I think we deserved to get the three points at full time as we kept on pushing to create something.
"When I saw there were nine minutes added on at the end, I thought that it could have been closer to 12, because our opponents tried only to waste time in the second half. You could see how important it was for both teams to get the win and eventually we got there."
