Deane at the double as Leicester stay on pace

Two goals by Brian Deane, a six-yard tap-in and a towering header, earned Leicester City a 2-1 win over Preston at the Walkers Stadium and kept them on course for an automatic promotion place from the Nationwide First Division back to the Premiership.

Only Eddie Lewis's clever free-kick, flighted over the defensive wall to give Preston a 20th-minute lead, disturbed Leicester's progress. After Deane's double, Leicester soaked up Preston pressure and tried to hit them on the break, Deane almost scoring a third with a header.

But below them, it's difficult to judge whether the fight to avoid relegation is more intense than the battle for a place in the play-offs. Certainly most managers think play-off places are still there for the taking. "It's a funny time of the season," the Norwich City manager, Nigel Worthington, said after his eighth-placed Canaries had beaten Coventry 2-0. "You'll find a lot of the sides dropping points that you didn't expect them to."

Like fifth-placed Nottingham Forest, who lost 1-0 at lowly but improving Brighton, and Sheffield United, fourth, who were held to a goalless draw at struggling Stoke City.

Ipswich Town are also primed to take advantage of any faltering play-off side, and their 1-0 defeat of Sheff-ield Wednesday at Hillsborough moved them to within five points of sixth-placed Wolves, as well as dropping the Owls back to the bottom of the table. "There's going to be twists and turns before the end, believe me," the Suffolk side's manager, Joe Royle, said. "If we win all nine remaining games we'll go into the play-offs, and that's the only way we can look at it."

Even Wimbledon, nine points off the play-off pace but with a game in hand, believe they have a chance after beating Millwall with more comfort than the 2-0 margin suggests. "Usually one of the sides in the top six gets nervous," the Dons manager, Stuart Murdoch, said hopefully, "and we have to be there when it happens."

But Burnley won't be. Their slump continued with a 3-2 defeat at Walsall. Jorge Leitao, Matt Carbon and Pedro Matias put Colin Lee's side in charge just after the hour, but then the Saddlers' goalkeeper, James Walker, was sent off and late goals by Robert Blake, a penalty, and Glen Little made it a nervous finish.

Nor did Gillingham and Rotherham United do much for each other's play-off hopes at Priestfield Stadium when the Gills' striker Rod Wallace equalised Paul Warne's early goal. It ended 1-1.

Grimsby's player-manager, Paul Groves, was the hero of the hour-and-a-half at Blundell Park, scoring the only goal of the match against FA Cup semi-finalists Watford to lift the Mariners off the bottom.

Elsewhere, Derby County's freefall continued, Bradford City the latest side to exploit the Rams' weakness in a 2-1 win at Pride Park.

No change in the Second Division top six, but in the Third Scunthorpe replaced Bournemouth in the third automatic promotion place when they drew at Torquay and the Cherries lost at York, who moved into the play-off places with Oxford.

Finally, Yeovil's dream of the non-League double ended when the Conference leaders surprisingly lost 2-0 at home to Burscough of the Unibond in the FA Trophy's last eight.