Alan Irvine was far from disgruntled with two-thirds of North End's performance in defeat against Barnsley at Deepdale, but it was the decision making in that final third that ultimately cost his side.

"In terms of the result it was certainly a bad day at the office, also in terms of the quality when we got into certain positions," he told the national and local press.

"It was a game that we dominated from start to finish but we didn't either pick out the right pass or make the right run when we got into some very good positions."

Despite the lack of firepower, Irvine wasn't prepared to put all his eggs in the Chris Brown basket when deciding what exactly went wrong with Preston's afternoon.

"Everybody misses key players when they're out, and Chris has been an important part of what we've been doing since January. However, it's been a team effort that has got us to where we are now and I think it would be disrespectful to the rest of the lads to say that it's all about Chris playing.

"We had enough of the game to win the game, and had we shown enough quality when we got into those promising positions we would have won the game and we wouldn't be asking questions as to whether Chris Brown was missed or not.

"I'm really reluctant to blame it all on Chris not being available. He's got a thigh strain which he got last week, but we've been hoping all week that he'd be ok. He was actually struggling to finish the game last week, but I would hope he would be available for next week."

Likewise, he wasn't pointing the finger of blame at referee Anthony Taylor following his crucial decision to award a second-half penalty against Billy Jones, which was converted by ex-North Ender Jon Macken at the Kop End.

"I've not watched it again yet, and I will watch it again. At the time it's probably fair to say I was disappointed with the decision, but it's probably better to reserve my judgement and comments until I've actually seen it.

"Sadly we don't have an instant replay system here, but it's something I'm hoping to get for next season.

"I can take positives from the game in that we dominated and did get into some promising positions, we were the better team but Barnsley defended well, and they deserve a lot of credit for that. They were very determined and resolute.

"I saw them play against Watford during the week and they were outstanding. They weren't that against us because we were the better team.

"Obviously the biggest positive you can take from a game is whether you win it, and we didn't do that.

"We got in behind them a number of times and got down the sides many, many times, we just didn't apply the right pass or people didn't make the right run.

"We didn't want the players to relax when they got to 54 points, and I don't think they did that. It wasn't down to a lack of application or effort, it was down to a lack of quality. These are things that we can work to improve at the training ground.

"If you look at the results that teams at the bottom of the table keep getting, 54 points may turn out to be enough, but certainly I don't think it's guaranteed at this stage. The results that go on in this division are amazing and I've said many times now that somebody's going to go down with a lot of points - and it may be a record number of points. I also think that somebody will go up with a record low number of points."