Brown's Preston have 19 league games remaining to fight for safety

Preston manager Phil Brown has questioned his players' "mentality to win a game of football" following Tuesday's 2-0 defeat against Barnsley.

North End lie bottom of the Championship and Brown admits they are in a precarious position.

"We have to turn the corner very, very soon," he told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"We can approach games by training and preparing properly, but it's really about the mentality of the individual crossing the white line."

Preston have won just one of their previous seven league games, although they had gone into Tuesday's game at Oakwell on the back of two draws.

And Brown, who took over the managerial role at Deepdale in January following Darren Ferguson's departure, believes his more experienced players need to step up to the mark.

Everybody tells you about the habit of losing, but it's the habit of winning I'm interested in Preston manager Phil Brown

"You can question the goals that we conceded but Andy Lonergan's stood firm on a number of occasions and shown that he's a top-class goalkeeper," said the former Hull boss.

"He doesn't need to be making those saves if his defence, midfield and strikeforce are prepared to put their bodies on the line and stop those efforts.

"But when your goalkeeper is probably your top player and second best is a young full-back [Conor McLaughlin] it begs a huge question - what are we doing? What are we giving? For me, it's quite simple, we need to be giving more.

"We are very professional in our output and we're very talented in what we're trying to achieve. But at the same time it's that 'je ne sais quoi', something that you can't quite put your finger on that you need to win a game of football.

"Everybody tells you about the habit of losing, but it's the habit of winning I'm interested in. We need to get that habit into the changing room as quickly as we possibly can."

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