Town boss Kieran McKenna felt his team ”looked in a pretty good rhythm” as they beat fellow Championship side Preston North End 2-1 at Deepdale in their toughest friendly test yet but says they still have room to improve.

Conor Chaplin and George Hirst scored the goals which saw the Blues to a deserved win over the Lilywhites, who finished 12th in last season’s second tier.

McKenna says Town took a deliberate step up from their previous four summer friendlies.

“The first three weeks, as we pitched to the lads, was going to be an awful lot of hard work and the games were just going to be the end of the training sessions,” McKenna said, echoing comments he made at the weekend.

“Tonight was the first one where we really focused on getting the intensity of the performance back.

“The players, the large majority, knew they were only going to play 45 minutes, so that helps because you know you’re not saving anything and that was the goal, to go out there and play at absolute full throttle, how we want to be in the season, where we finished off and the levels that we want to get it to.

“It was a full throttle 45 minutes. It helps when the players know that in advance and I liked out work with the ball, I liked our work without the ball and we did a lot of good things.

“Definitely things in there to improve, you could see with Preston’s threat on set plays that that was a good lesson for us because you can be playing ever so well, like we were, and they could have scored with a set play to go 1-0 up and then that would have been a really difficult game, not just tonight, but imagine in a full stadium.

“Lots to learn, lots to improve but tonight was pre-planned, a big step up in intensity and football-wise, a good step forward in performance.”

McKenna was delighted with Chaplin’s opening goal, created by Kayden Jackson and Nathan Broadhead.

“A great strike,” he said. “Lovely little touch from Broady, great disguise on it. I thought some of our attacking play in the first half was very good.

“We built through the pitch well, the midfielders were in really good sync. Leif [Davis] and Kayden had a fantastic threat down the sides and in behind and Conor and Broady were finding the connections and finding the work off of Freddie [Ladapo].

“We looked in a pretty good rhythm but we know we have to improve. We don’t read too much into pre-season friendlies if the performance isn’t good and we’re not going to get too excited because we played well, it’s just another little building block towards the start of the season.”

McKenna was also pleased that George Hirst, who returned on a permanent basis from Leicester last week, got on target, although felt the striker probably ought to have netted more.

“Hopefully he’s saying that he should have had three because he had one where the keeper was on the floor, he had a header for a good chance!” he said.

“But he looked got straight back into the rhythm of it, he was pressing well, as Freddie had pressed really well in his 60 minutes, he was linking us back to goal and he was right there in the box where we want him to be. Nice for him to get the goal and we’ve just got to build him up now.”

Despite having been much the better side over the 90 minutes, the Blues needed keeper Vaclav Hladky to be on his mettle in the latter stages, Preston having pulled a goal back via Felipe Rodriguez-Gentile with nine minutes left on the clock.

“I think that’s always going to be the way, to be honest with you, with the number of changes and you’re playing with players that are out of position all over the place in the second half,” McKenna continued.

“It was always going to be that way whenever the first goal went in, it was going to be [a tough] 10 minutes.

“But in a way I enjoyed it because if we were really worried about the result at that point then we wouldn’t have taken the two centre-halves off as we planned to on 80 minutes.

“But I enjoyed seeing the group trying to get through it. It was a great experience for Fin [Barbrook] and Ryan [Carr] especially, but even Elkan [Baggott], even though he’s a bit more experienced, to come on when we’d got nine minutes to see it out over the line and feel that adrenaline, feel that pressure. Carrsy was clearing them off the line and it was a great experience for them.

“It was a bit scatty, certainly, but for those boys, I think they’ll feel a lot better with the fact that we managed to hold on for the result.

“I enjoyed seeing them in that environment and for the other players as well to feel the excitement of a few last-ditch blocks and clearances and near misses was a nice way to finish the game off in some ways.”

Regarding Harry Clarke, who missed out along with George Edmundson, who suffered an ankle problem during the Austria training camp, and Wes Burns and Janoi Donacien, who picked up niggles in the weekend matches.

“He’s just managing a little something that he’s managed all through pre-season, really,” the Blues manager said of the January signing from Arsenal.

“Nothing major. He might be with us at the weekend, if not shortly after that. Just a little issue that he’s managing, so we wanted to rest him tonight.

“Janoi and Wes aren’t too bad, they might be there Saturday, if they’re not there Saturday, they’ll be back there very shortly after that.

“George has recovered well this week, so we’re hoping that we’ll see him on Saturday.

“We’re a bit short, especially defenders at the moment but it shouldn’t last too long and we should be strong again in that department, certainly by next week.”

While Burns appeared to have a calf problem, McKenna said of Donacien and Clarke’s problems: “Both have little tendon issues, two little tendon issues that they’ve been managing, which is pretty normal for this stage of the season and I think they’ll both be fine.”

Cameron Humphreys came off having received a blow to the head and McKenna says the young midfielder was taken off as a precaution, as is required in such circumstances.

“He’s got a concussion in there, so it was the right thing to get him off,” he said. “I’m sure there might be some protocols that he has to follow but thankfully he’s fine in there.

“He can’t remember much about the game but he’s fine and he’s getting a bit of stick for the boys, so touch wood everything’s fine tonight and he’ll be OK.”

Regarding Saturday, when the Blues are first in action at Cambridge United and then at Stevenage, he says he will be at both matches.

“I’ll make the dash,” the Northern Irishman said. “It’s a busy couple of weeks and a busy couple of Saturdays but it’s a great way to do it.

“It gets everybody minutes. I think you can see in the players, the benefits they’ve had from the last few weeks and the fact that we have had plenty of minutes.

“Sometimes it’s a bit busy and bit stressful for the staff and it’s not always the smoothest on the pitch because everyone’s focus is split over two games but I don’t think you can put a price on everybody getting those sort of minutes at the moment.”

Photo: Matchday Images

warfarinman69 added 22:47 - Jul 19 Doesn't that man talk sense
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Wacko added 23:04 - Jul 19 Except for the last line of this article
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rickw added 23:31 - Jul 19 I assume at that point he ran away???
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ArnieM added 07:37 - Jul 20 I think Phil needs to get some Duracell batteries for his dic…. ta……pho………
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JewellintheTown added 10:06 - Jul 20 "… training session, so t". It's a no nonsense Northern Irish saying that means "we've done football, now for some lunch". Popular in Yorkshire and the North too.
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