Preston North End risk suffering same fate as Blackburn Rovers: View | OneFootball

As it seems most years now, there is an incredibly tight race for the Championship play-offs this season.

There's a bit of a gap forming right at the top, with Leicester City, Southampton, Leeds United, and Ipswich Town leading the race for the automatic promotion spots, but there is currently an 11-point gap between Ipswich - who are fourth in the table - and West Bromwich Albion in fifth.

After the top four, though, things really start to tighten up.

Eight points separate West Brom and Cardiff City, who are all the way down in 13th in the bottom half of the table.

Bristol City, who are one spot below Cardiff, are closer to the play-offs than they are to relegation.

It's a real toss of the coin at the moment, and one team who are right in the mix are Preston North End, who are only a win away from being tied on points with Hull City, who hold the final play-off place.

It's one of the best chances that PNE have had in recent seasons to get into the Premier League, but there is one major thing holding them back that was the downfall of their Lancashire rivals Blackburn Rovers last season too.

Preston North End's goal difference could stop them from making the play-offs

The Lilywhites' goal difference is by far the worst of all those clubs that are in the hunt for fifth or sixth in the second tier of English football - through 30 games, they have a minus 11 goal difference, with the next lowest in the chasing pack being Cardiff with minus three.

This effectively sets PNE a point back from everyone else, as it's unlikely they'll be able to catch up with teams like West Brom (+14) in this metric, so they'll have to end up with more points than the other sides in the battle.

This same scenario also hit Blackburn last season.

They finished seventh and on the same number of points as Sunderland, who nabbed the final play-off place because their goal difference was 15 better than Rovers'.

The Black Cats weren't a high-flying side, they only ended on a +13 goal difference for the season, but Blackburn ended on -2.

Having a poor goal difference is a sure fire way to practically eliminate yourselves from playoff contention, even if you are as good as the others, on points.

How Preston can fix their goal difference

A potentially obvious answer would be to score more goals.

Of course, higher levels of attacking output would give them a better chance, but it could also make them more open at the back, which would be counter-productive.

It's actually on the defensive end that North End could make the most impact on their goal difference.

They've scored 39 times in their first 30 games, which is only three behind Albion; the highest scorers of the chasing pack are Coventry with 46.

But the difference between the Lilywhites and the Baggies is that the Midlands-based side have conceded 22 fewer goals than their Lancashire counterparts.

So Ryan Lowe's focus shouldn't be on getting more production from his forwards; it should be on making that back-three water-tight.

PNE have conceded four or more goals in the Championship four times already this season - that isn't good enough for a team with play-off aspirations, so performances at the back need to improve drastically.