Preston North End's promotion hopes suffered something of a blow on Tuesday night, as they lost 2-0 to Championship league leaders West Brom at The Hawthorns.

Things started badly for North End in the Midlands, with Hal Robson-Kanu firing home from former Preston man Callum Robinson's cross with just five minutes on the clock.

Jake Livermore then doubled the Baggies' lead on the stroke of half time, before Preston's frustration was compounded when Darnell Fisher was shown a straight red card for a heavy challenge on Robinson around 20 minutes into the second half.

While they still occupy the final play-off spot, that defeat has only increased the pressure on Alex Neil's side, with the nature of their performance not going down well with the club's fans.

One player who has come in for some significant scrutiny following that defeat to West Brom is Sean Maguire, with the attacker coming in for some heavy flack on social media for his individual performance on Tuesday.

But is that criticism of the Republic of Ireland international justified?

Here, we put the spotlight on Maguire's performance against the Baggies, in order to find out.

In the end, Maguire would make it through 85 minutes of Tuesday night's game before being withdrawn by Neil and replaced by Brad Potts, although the stats appear to suggest that the 25-year-old may have been lucky to last that long on the pitch.

With Maguire failing to take a single shot during the whole game, the attacker certainly doesn't appear to have troubled former Preston man Sam Johnstone in the West Brom goal in a direct sense at least.

Add to that the fact that the Irishman registered just two touches in the opposition box in the entire game, and questions may well be raised about either his intent or confidence to get into the sort of position from where he could have made that direct impact with any sort of attempt on goal on Tuesday night.

Worryingly for Maguire and Preston, it seems it wasn't just with his work in front of goal where the attacker struggled to pose a problem for the Baggies either.

Having failed to win any of his five offensive duels or successfully complete any of the four dribbles he attempted, it appears Maguire was easily dealt with by the West Brom defence, making it even harder for his teammates to get back into a game they were chasing right from the early stages.

Indeed, with Maguire only providing an assist for one shot as well on Wednesday, it seems he struggled as much to create chances for the rest of his side, as much as he struggled to make them for himself, or even take the game to West Brom.

It seems, therefore, that in a game that in many ways presented a big opportunity for Preston in the promotion race, the rather lacklustre performance of Maguire is one that North End fans appear to have every right to be frustrated with.

Consequentially, on the basis of this showing, it would be understandable if Maguire was to miss out on selection when Neil takes his side to another promotion contender in the shape of Fulham on Saturday afternoon.