Preston North End are back in action again tonight, as they travel to take on Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium.
Alex Neil’s men face a long trip down to the South Coast, just days after being thrashed 4-1 by another recently-relegated side in Watford.
Neil has to try and pick up his players for another tough game, and he may well be tempted to make a couple of changes tonight.
With that in mind, here’s our predicted lineup for tonight’s game against the Cherries…
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Declan Rudd will almost certainly start in goal, barring any late injury or illness concern, whilst the lack of natural full backs likely means that the back three of Jordan Storey, Patrick Bauer and Ben Davies will continue.
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Alan Browne returns from suspension, meaning he will be able to come into the side at right wing back, whilst Tom Barkhuizen is in decent form and could remain at left wing back.
Joe Rafferty, Darnell Fisher, Andrew Hughes and Josh Earl are all out at the moment, so Neil is having to find makeshift wing backs to start; hardly ideal.
Browne’s return may enable Neil to go with the 3-4-1-2 we saw in the win at Huddersfield Town, with Ryan Ledson coming back into midfield to partner Ben Pearson.
That would allow Daniel Johnson to play as the number 10, though don’t rule out Brad Potts or even Tom Bayliss playing in this role after Johnson was a little underwhelming on Saturday afternoon.
This system also allows Scott Sinclair to play up front with Emil Riis, a partnership that looked dangerous against Huddersfield.
The current absences makes a bench difficult to predict, but we’ll have a guess at Connor Ripley, Paul Huntington, Lewis Coulton, Brad Potts, Tom Bayliss, Jayden Stockley, Jacob Holland-Wilkinson, Seani Maguire and Adam O’Reilly.
