Paul Heckingbottom backs Preston’s Thierry Small to add more goals to his game

Paul Heckingbottom has called for more from goalscorer Thierry Small after his stunning strike in Preston’s 2-1 victory over Swansea at Deepdale.

The 21-year-old let fly with an eighth-minute arrow from 30 yards to open the scoring and Milutin Osmajic doubled the lead after 49 minutes before substitute Eom Ji-Sung curled in a late consolation.

On Small’s goal, the Preston boss said: “[It was] a great strike. He can hit a clean strike but, yeah, it’s a fantastic goal.

“We still think he’s got big qualities that can make a big impact in this league. Goals like that aren’t necessarily what we want from him we want from him but the last two he scored where he’s in at the back post, that’s what we want more [of].

“We think he can add even more goals to his game. Goals like that are the icing on the cake.”

On the game, Heckingbottom added: “I think I had a mini heart attack in the second half. It was hard work. I’m probably over the moon with it for all the wrong reasons. We’ve had to be resilient, we’ve had to really dig deep.

“We were nowhere near where we wanted to be today. We started with energy but we were poor with the ball and I felt that with Thierry’s goal after eight or nine minutes, I felt we lost all the impetus. We were still trying to play our way into the game.

“We couldn’t raise our quality with the ball. We were always defending and I was desperate to get into half-time really.”

Alan Sheehan was frustrated but remained happy with the level of performance for the most part.

The Swansea head coach said: “They score a worldie from 30 yards right into the top corner. You give yourself a little mountain to climb and we responded very well.

“We have limited them to nearly nothing for the rest of the first half but we couldn’t put the ball in the net. We start the second half, we are in their half and one long ball, we let it bounce and it’s 2-0.

“We had opportunities in the second half again. We got the one goal but couldn’t get the other one.

“It’s disappointing. You come here and have 18 shots and command a lot of the game, which doesn’t really happen, but they’ll be delighted with their win and we need to find a way of closing those margins.

“You have a large amount of that first half but you can’t find that killer edge and that’s disappointing. We’ve gone away to Charlton and Preston and, on our level of performance, it could be six points and we’ve come away with one.”