Ali McCann absence in Preston North End’s win at Sheffield Wednesday explained
Preston North End midfielder Ali McCann missed Saturday’s 0-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday as a precuation.
The Northern Ireland international was withdrawn after 76 minutes in the previous encounter with Sunderland. He was then missing at Hillsborough, with manager Ryan Lowe bringing Duane Holmes in for his first Championship start in PNE colours. North End’s bench against the Owls was very young, with Noah Mawene, Kian Taylor, Lewis Leigh and Felipe Rodriguez-Gentile named as substitutes.
McCann joined Robbie Brady, Emil Riis, Ched Evans, Ben Whiteman, Layton Stewart and Calvin Ramsay on the sidelines. The number 13’s issue was not major, but enough for Lowe to opt against including him in the squad.
“He’s okay, he just took a whack on his hamstring,” said Lowe. “We weren’t going to risk him, because we don’t want to lose him for too long. He was actually out, running on the grass on Friday but there was no point in risking him. If we’d have risked him, it could’ve been worse.
“We just dropped Browney down one and pushed Duane in, because we felt Duane needed an opportunity anyway. He got 70 odd minutes in his tank, so yeah – again – you can’t do anything about it. With injuries and stuff like that, it is what it is and I can only deal with what I’ve got on the pitch. The lads who went out there performed and were fantastic.”
Lowe mentioned his decision to drag the skipper, Browne, back into a more central role alongside Ryan Ledson – with Holmes playing in advanced midfield next to Mads Frokjaer. PNE’s captain on the day was impressive and his start to the season continues to please Lowe.
“Yeah, fantastic,” said Lowe. “And that’s what we want. We want him to be leading by example and that’s certainly what he’s done, so long may that continue.”
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It was a happy return to his old stomping ground for the former Owl as Liam Lindsay scored the only goal of the game to give the Lilywhites all three points at Hillsborough, a result that left Wednesday still waiting for their first point of the campaign.
Preston had to work hard for their victory defensively, but did well to keep the hosts at arm’s length for the bulk of the tie and saw things out to pick up their first clean sheet of the campaign.
“I’m really pleased for the group,” he said, as quoted by the Lancashire Post. “They’ve been fantastic. We knew what we were going to come up against today in Sheffield Wednesday: a big, strong, powerful team. I felt comfortable for large parts of the game, to be fair, sitting there watching it. Credit to the boys, they were fantastic in everything they did. They got us up the pitch well, they managed the game well; we asked them to play a bit higher second half, which we did.
“And then obviously when we score, they’re then pumping balls into our box and long throws into our box. We just had to sink a little bit but we were fantastic and I’m really pleased. We try and do things properly and that’s the way forward.”
Wednesday now have another week to get to work on the training ground ahead of their trip to Cardiff City, another team yet to get a win under their belt this season so far.
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