Preston fan Tim Mercer's view: Ben Pearson showed his undoubted class

Two passes in particular will stick in the memory; the first leading to the opening goal as his vision and ability completely split the Wigan defence to let in Daniel Johnson to provide the assist for a Tom Barkhuizen tap-in.

The second was of equal quality and put Scott Sinclair in for a chance he dragged wide of the far post.

I suspect Sinclair will be annoyed at himself for not getting his second in as many games, but his overall performances have added that bit of missing quality we so badly needed in the build-up to the January transfer window.

Despite a couple of scares early on, we went into half-time as the clearly dominant team. At the restart our fears seemed misguided, as a superb and flowing move down the right channel saw interchanges with Barkhuizen and Alan Browne before the wingman returned the favour of an assist to Johnson by a cross from just inside the box.

DJ calmly took a touch before stroking the ball into the net and we all relaxed and dreamed of more goals to come. Instead a scrappy bit of defending let the hosts back into the game in under 10 minutes and we were left hanging on.

The decision not to replace him with Joe Rafferty was surprising given how well this right-footed youngster has deputised in the left back position in Hughes’ absence.

Instead, Alex Neil moved Darnell Fisher to left back and brought on Tom Clarke to cover right back.

I’m sure Neill had his reasons, but it just seemed to invite more pressure with Fisher looking out of place and Clarke having to use all his guile and experience to make-up for lack of pace.

But, hang-on we did, adding three points to our tally and returning into the play-off pack.