Preston North End welcome Stoke City to Deepdale on Tuesday night. It’s the first home league game under the lights this season and The Lilywhites will be looking to turn draws into wins.
Four points from the last four games have all come from hard earned draws. Frankie McAvoy will be hoping for a home win on Tuesday night though, as his side need to start showing their prowess in front of goal.
There isn’t too much to knock from the last four league games, as they have made up part of an overall eight game unbeaten run. Blackpool have edged ahead of us in the table though, so we need to sort that out quickly.
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The form has been promising of late which is why Frankie McAvoy has stuck with the same team for the past few games. He’s happy with the personnel fitting in with his adopted formation, but may have to make a couple of changes to get a reaction from them.
Weeknight games at Deepdale used to almost be guaranteed wins back in the day. It’s time to start making it a formidable place to come. We’ve lost only one of the six games against Stoke City in the past three seasons since their return to this level. There was a comfortable 3-1 victory under the lights at home two years ago, thanks to a couple of howlers from Jack Butland. There were goal for Daniel Johnson, Billy Bodin, and Josh Harrop on that day.
Michael O’Neill is now the manager of The Potters and has steadied the ship for them. They currently sit in 5th place with 17 points from the first nine games.
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I think there will be a few changes to the side tonight to freshen things up.
Predicted team
Iversen; Storey, Bauer, Hughes; Van den Berg, McCann, Whiteman, Earl; Johnson; Riis, Murphy.
Substitutes: Rudd, Cunningham, Huntington, Ledson, Potts, Maguire, Sinclair.
I think Ali McCann and Josh Murphy will make their first starts for the club in the league after some impressive substitute performances. It may be harsh on Ryan Ledson and Sean Maguire who haven’t done much wrong, but we need to mix things up to hopefully find a winning formula.
It’s becoming very hard to predict the bench these days with the options we have available. Tom Barkhuizen is back in training, and with the options in midfield, club captain Alan Browne is finding it hard to get back in.