Preston North End 0 Bristol City 0

Preston had much the better of the chances as Bristol City spent the first 45 minutes of their Championship season on the back foot at Deepdale.

City included five debutants in their starting line-up but it was Preston who fashioned the first chance when a snap volley from outside the box by Neil Mellor forced a flying parry from Dean Gerken.

Mellor was the architect of the next chance when he teed up Paul Parry who forced another good parry from Gerken. The ball then broke to Parry again and his low angkled effort was blocked by Liam Fontaine.

From the corner Sean St Ledger headed over from pointblank range before Danny Haynes had a shot blocked by Youl Mawene at the other end.

Mellor continued to threaten and his corss almost found Parkin but Lewin Nyatanga, another debutant, did just enough to snuff out the danger.

Then from Ross Wallace's free kick on the stroke of halftime an almighty scramble saw Louis Carey clear off the line from Parkin before Gerken dived on the ball.

And in stoppage time Mawene volleyed over after City failed to clear a Wallace corner.

Preston North End (4-4-2): Lonergan; Jones, Mawene, St Ledger, Davidson; Parry, Shumulikoski, Chaplow; Wallace; Mellor, Parkin. Subs not used: Brown, Nicholson, Chilvers, Henderson, Nolan, Elliott, Sedgwick.

Bristol City (3-4-1-2): Gerken; Carey, Fontaine, Nyatanga; Orr, Hartley, Elliott, McAllister; Clarkson; Maynard, Haynes. Subs not used: Skuse, Sproule, Johnson, Akinde, Williams, Wilson, Basso.