Preston North End take on Blackpool on Saturday afternoon and that means Ryan Lowe facing off against Michael Appleton once again.
Here we are again.
PNE make the short trip up the M55 to take on bitter rivals Blackpool at Bloomfield Road.
It was this very weekend last year that North End headed to Blackpool for a first league meeting in more than a decade.
Sadly, PNE lost 2-0 that day in a dismal performance from which Frankie McAvoy never really recovered.
McAvoy took on opposite number Neil Critchley that day but both sides have changed managers since then.
McAvoy was sacked in December and replaced by Ryan Lowe, who secured a 1-0 win over Critchley and Blackpool back in April of this year.
Critchley then decided to leave Blackpool to join Steven Gerrard’s coaching staff at Aston Villa – a decision that backfired given that he and Gerrard were sacked today.
Blackpool replaced him with Michael Appleton, the former PNE midfielder who had already managed Blackpool once before.
Appleton, 46, has now been in six managerial jobs but has never faced North End, always just managing to miss each other.
Appleton has though faced off against Lowe in the past when Lincoln City and Plymouth Argyle locked horns.
Their first meeting ended in a 2-0 Lincoln win in October 2020 as Appleton claimed the spoils thanks to goals from Jorge Grant and Brennan Johnson.
Since then though, Lowe has hit back well, first beating Appleton’s Lincoln 2-0 in the FA Cup just a month after that 2-0 defeat.
There was a barnstormer between the two managers in February 2021 as Lowe’s Plymouth secured a huge 4-3 win.
Lowe’s side went 2-0 up before Appleton engineered a fight back all the way to 3-2, only for Argyle to score two in the final 15 minutes for a dramatic win.
There were more goals in their last meeting as Lincoln and Plymouth played out an entertaining 2-2 draw just two months before Lowe left for Preston.
15 goals in the four games means we may be in for some goals on Saturday, and Lowe will be looking to extend that unbeaten run over Appleton to four.