Town boss Kieran McKenna has revealed that the Blues received an apology from last week’s officials regarding Preston’s opening two goals in last Saturday’s 3-2 defeat at Deepdale.
Skipper Sam Morsy appeared to be fouled by Will Keane ahead of the first goal in the fifth minute, which the former Town striker scored, but referee Graham Scott failed to spot anything untoward.
Then, three minutes later, there was a clear offside in the build-up to the second, which was inadvertently put past Vaclav Hladky by George Edmundson, also not seen by assistant referee James Mainwaring.
"Yes, I think it was stated that both first goals shouldn't have counted and I think that's clear watching it back,” McKenna said when asked about the apology.
"The first goal is a clear foul, taking away the massive deflection on the shot from 28 yards, and the second goal is a clear offside.
"I said at the time it's a tough game anyway, but when you have those two instances happen in the first seven minutes of the game, it's always going to be tough. There can be credit taken from the way we came back from that situation.”
While the opening to the Preston game was somewhat skewed by the two goals, the Blues might have conceded in the opening 70 seconds, hardly the first time Town have started a game slowly or allowed the opposition to get their noses in front in this season.
"There's two sides to it,” McKenna reflected. "You can say that we started the game slowly, but that's because there were two goals that should have been disallowed in the first seven minutes.
"It wasn't like the players weren't running or on the front foot in the game, so sometimes it can be moments.
"I think we've had quite a few games this year where there have been random moments, refereeing decisions, great goals or individual errors, and these things can happen in a football match.
"But we don't hide from the fact that, especially away from home, there's been a few too many games than what we would want where we've conceded the first goal.
"Especially in a couple of the away games we haven't managed to get a foothold in the game as steadily as we would want to in the early stages of the game, and that's something that we've looked at and will continue to look at.
"We always review every bit of the team and how we're progressing and try and identify areas that we can improve, but at the same time, football is a random game sometimes.
"The players prepared really well last week for the game, I certainly don't have any problem with the attitude and energy at the start of the game. They scored a deflected goal from 28 yards that should have been a free-kick and that turns into a bad start.
"So I think there's been a few of those, but there's also things that we've identified and we'll look at to give us a better chance to get a good footing in the game.”
Town are currently in a run of winning only one of their last eight in the league, a streak similar to this time last year, which preceded the remarkable unbeaten 15-game charge to promotion, 13 wins and two draws.
McKenna was asked whether there were comparisons with the sticky spell last year and the current situation.
"I think you're always going to have different phases in seasons anyway,” McKenna considered. "Maybe one team might this year, but in general you're not going to have a phase where you win all your games all of the time over a 46-game season.
"Last Saturday was the first loss in the league for six games and the first loss in the league in 2024.
"You're going to have phases anyway and we're certainly going to have phases in this division.
"So it's not that we need any reassurance, but of course last season we had phases probably at a similar time of year and some similarities of injuries and players missing through the winter period.
"We're now in a period of trying to integrate new signings into the team, which doesn't happen overnight and I don't think you'll see us at our fullest in terms of that integration within one week.
"So we're trying to do that while getting players back from injury and have as healthy a squad as we possibly can.
"Also continuing to compete in a really tough division where every game is difficult and compete at times where things go against you like they did last week with two decisions, and also an element of last week playing on a difficult football pitch to play football on, so there are lots of things you can take.
"For us, we knew going into the season there were going to be spells where you don't win as many games.
"That's why we're pretty consistent in terms of sticking to the day-to-day work, doing the right things in the right attitude and culture in the building, which I'm seeing and enjoying our work day-to-day and looking forward to taking each game as it comes. That's what we've done last year and what we're continuing to do this year.”