Ryan Lowe defends Preston North End's change of shape despite being 'outclassed' by Norwich City

Lowe went away from his usual 3-5-2 formation, which brought success for PNE in their last home game, for a 4-4-2 system, with Bambo Diaby starting at right back, Andrew Hughes at left back and Alan Browne and Daniel Johnson providing the width.

Norwich quickly got themselves into an unassailable lead inside the first half, Teemu Pukki netting after 13 minutes and Kieran Dowell doubling the Canaries lead just three minutes later. Dowell got his second and Norwich’s third after 28 minutes.

Pukki added his second to round off the scoring with just over 20 minutes to go in the game.

North End boss Lowe did not see the heavy defeat coming, he said: “I'm very disappointed. The first half has killed the game, it's not been one to get into in the second half when you find yourself three goals down. It's probably some good play and some good finishing from them but for us it was very sloppy.

"When you play teams like that who have the quality they can finish you off and that's what they did. You only have to look at games and early goals, it kills you off. What they did today was scored goals and we didn't.

"There's no excuse for that performance, we didn't see it coming, we fancied ourselves. We changed our shape to be a little more resolute, which it looked the other way.

"Sometimes you can't win when you do that and change it but ultimately you have to pay Norwich the respect they deserve but ultimately we didn't do ourselves any justice today in terms of the performances.

"I can be outclassed by quality players but I can't be outclass by running and fighting and really having a gutsy display with determination. We've had them against Stoke and Huddersfield but today we didn't have that.”

PNE’s change of shape was planned ahead of time for the game against the Canaries, regardless of their new acquisitions up front this week.

Tom Cannon and Liam Delap came in for their debuts, with the former getting the nod due to having more time in training.

Lowe said: “We'd already planned what we were doing with Norwich, Monday and Tuesday was prep and it was always going to be a back four with Ben Woodburn in the 10 and match them up in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 at times.

"I didn't think the shape was the problem. I think the defending and the pressing and stopping people running through the middle of the pitch and clearing your lines was the problem - it wasn't the shape.

"Liam only had one day with us, Tom had two or three days extra hence why he was chosen to play up top. I don't think it was the shape, it was the performances that stopped us doing what we wanted to do.”