What Jon Dahl Tomasson had to say about Preston North End and Blackburn Rovers' performance

North End were quick out of the blocks at Ewood Park and were ahead after 17 minutes as Ben Woodburn was played in on goal by Ched Evans to calmly slot the ball beyond Thomas Kaminski in the Rovers’ goal.

Two minutes into the second half Evans made it 2-0 after Daniel Johnson’s low cross into the box but Blackburn pulled one back through Bradley Dack.

Evans was on hand to restore PNE’s advantage as his excellent header finished off Greg Cunningham’s bending ball into the box, with Ben Whiteman charging forward to get on the end of a smart backheel from Johnson to find the back of the net from outside the area, with help from a deflection.

It was a strong display from Ryan Lowe’s side and such was their superiority that Tomasson could not find a positive from the game. It means that in Blackburn’s last two games they have lost to two of the fiercest rivals, a 3-0 loss to Burnley before the World Cup break followed by a humbling from PNE at Ewood Park.

Tomasson said: “It was a very disappointing performance. When we played the ball, the intensity, we did not play it quick enough. We didn't have enough players who were prepared to make runs forward and we played too many balls backwards instead of playing the ball forwards. We lost pretty much every duel.

"We've had some great wins at Ewood Park and some great performances but today it was very bad. The supporters didn't deserve it in that way and the players need to take care of that, that it is never going to happen again.

“We have created a fortress here and today it was not a fortress at all. We are very disappointed, as we should be after a performance where we were second best in everything. There is nothing positive we can take out of today but you always need to stay together after a performance like that.

"Every situation that happened today was just not good enough. We were too slow, we didn't have enough players running behind, everyone was running towards the ball and losing duels.

"It's quite difficult to win a football game when that is the case, isn't it?”

“We've spoken about and we need to have a good post match meeting about it next week.”

The win saw PNE rise to fourth initially, ending Saturday in fifth as the rest of the day’s games in the Championship were played.

It also put to bed Preston’s own disappointment from before the international break, losing 4-2 to Millwall before the four week pause in games.

It’s now four wins in their last five for North End but there was not much in the way of compliments from the Rovers boss post match.

He said: “They deserved to win the game and they won it. Congratulations to Preston, it's a good win for them. They did well, they have done well so far but we had a very poor game.”