Preston 2, Stoke City 1
Whitehead himself, playing after his registration went through in time after all, was a neat and largely tidy presence before becoming one of a multitude of substitutions in and around the hour mark.
There was a more lacklustre look about many of his colleagues, however, as they succumbed to a couple of first-half goals from Neil Mellor before Richard Cresswell headed home to revive late hope for the visitors.
Stoke's afternoon might have taken a more productive turn had they not opened the game by missing an early penalty after fine work by Dave Kitson.
Kitson latched onto James Beattie's nudge down the left channel and, when he pulled the ball inside his marker to line up a shot, his trailing leg was caught with sufficient force for the referee to rightly point to the spot.
But Liam Lawrence's firm effort was superbly palmed round the keeper's right-hand post as Andy Longergan dived low down by the base of his upright.
City's only other genuine chance of note fell to their new boy in the 33rd minute, but the ball was on Whitehead so quickly that it was an instinctive lash at the ball that sent it over the bar from close range following a nod down from Glenn Whelan's left-wing cross.
Stoke's problems at the other end – behind which there were around 200 visiting fans – began materialising just before the half-hour when Thomas Sorensen touched over Chris Sedgwick's angled drive and then did likewise to foil Mellor.
But the former Liverpool striker was to have his revenge with two goals either side of a strong penalty call as Stoke were punished for some distinctly sloppy work in their own third in the second quarter of the game.
Mellor opened his account in the 31st minute when controlling and tucking away into an unguarded goal after Sorensen came and failed to connect with Ross Wallace's floated ball from the Preston right.
Mellor might have had a penalty – and Shawcross a red card had it been a senior game – when he skirted round the leaden-footed defender and was tugged to the ground on what the referee ruled was the edge of the area.
Again Mellor was to exact his revenge, however, by later bursting into the area and between Danny Higginbotham and Glenn Whelan right of goal before shooting early enough to catch Sorensen slightly unawares in beating him to his left at the near post.
Sub keeper Wayne Henderson was twice in action soon after the break, both times against Matthew Etherington, when gathering his angled shot and then advancing to block a poked effort from Beattie's through ball.
And those two were at it again shortly after when Kitson's perfectly-weighted pass invited an Etherington run and shot well blocked by Henderson.
That post half-time flurry had begun to subside by the time the action was both interrupted and disrupted by the customary deluge of substitutions either side of the hour mark.
Of those departing, Kitson and Etherington had made the most telling contributions when it mattered most on a day when it seemed Stoke were destined to draw a blank.
There was certainly a makeshift look to a visiting 11 showing few signs of making serious inroads into Preston's two-goal buffer as we entered the final quarter-of-an-hour.
But late hope was revived when Richard Cresswell marked his return to Deepdale by nodding in Rory Delap's long throw from the edge of the six-yard box with 10 minutes remaining.
Cresswell himself then lashed wide of the near post with one effort and curled wide from another as he caught the only genuine glimpse of a late equaliser.
Preston: Longergan (Henderson,46), Jones (Hart,61), Davidson (Trotman,61), Chilvers, St Ledger (Nolan,61), Sedgwick (Brown,65), Chaplow, Carter, Wallace (Hawley,80), Mellor (Elliott,65), Parkin (Nicholson,65).
Stoke: Sorensen, Griffin (Dickinson,72), Higginbotham (Shotton,63), Cort (Sonko,63), Shawcross, Lawrence (Tonge,67), Whitehead (Delap,57), Whelan (Diao,57), Etherington (Pugh,57), Beattie, Kitson (Cresswell,63).
Refeere: A Haines.
Attendance: 3,121.
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