‘An incredible record’ – Ryan Lowe delighted with Preston’s clean sheets

Ryan Lowe hailed Preston’s defence after securing a seventh consecutive Championship clean sheet in the 1-0 win at Coventry.

Emil Riis came off the bench to net the winner at the CBS Arena, where the hosts were playing their first game of the season following issues with their pitch.

Preston are unbeaten in seven league games this term, scoring two goals and conceding none to become just the third team in the history of the top-four divisions to start the season with seven clean sheets.

Lowe said: “It is an incredible record and fair play to Fred (Woodman) and the lads, but it is a squad game and the defending from the front is phenomenal as well, midfielders, wing-backs.

“Look it is good and people recognise you for keeping the back door shut against good teams.

“It is good but ultimately it is about winning games of football. We are not here to break records, we are here to win games of football and see where it takes us.

“In the meantime, if you are breaking records, then so be it, but more important is winning.

“And to see the ball hitting the back of the net was a bit of a relief.

“I wasn’t worried it wouldn’t be our night because if you are creating chances, I won’t worry and if we kept plugging away, we would create opportunities.”

Lowe felt Coventry goalkeeper Ben Wilson should have seen red for tripping Troy Parrott just outside the penalty area when the on-loan forward looked destined to tap home into an empty net.

The former Plymouth boss said: “It is a stonewall sending off. You only have to look around and the place goes quiet.

“I don’t want to see anyone get sent off, because I like it to be even, but the fact of the matter is, if Troy takes that touch around him and stays on his feet, which he did, he just rolls the ball into an empty net. It is a stonewall red card.”

Bottom-placed Coventry are playing catch up after their pitch issues.

“It becomes a false situation because we’re looking at it going we’re not doing very well,” said boss Mark Robins.

“But we haven’t started and that’s the biggest thing. The message is to keep going because we’ll get there, they’ll get there and there’s no doubt about it.

“We are playing catch-up, there’s no doubt about it, it makes it really difficult and makes it sound like an excuse. There’s no excuses, if you haven’t played as many games as the others and you’re not in a rhythm it makes it really difficult when you’re playing against sides that are really good teams.

“They’ve built into a season, they’ve got clean sheets in every game that they’ve played, we were really unlucky not to score.

“It’s been really difficult but we’ve got a situation where we can play again and we can start to build that rhythm and start to enjoy it.”

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