With very little time between Christmas games, the gaffer has plenty to think about between now and Barnsley, but without the luxury of the normal length of time in which to think it through.
Likewise, for the players, there is no time to sit back and relax, and instead have to keep their bodies going, almost on autopilot.
Alan Irvine explained in the aftermath of the victory over Derby County that there's not a great deal that can be done to make things any easier, but nobody will be letting up in terms of effort between now and 3pm on Sunday afternoon. Talking about the plans in place, he told us:
"For the boys who played against Derby, it's all about recovery. They now have to eat, rest and train properly, but for them the prepararion will all be done by us, because we'll make sure they know what's coming from Barnsley because we'll give them all the information we can.
"Those that didn't play will train before the game as they normally would on a day prior to a game. It won't be a long or tough session, but they need to get themselves ready.
"We will train at our normal venue on Saturday, but will probably leave around 2pm and go straight across to the hotel, which will give the lads a chance to do some work in the swimming pool, get a massage, eat properly, and generally prepare in the right way. The difficulty we have is fitting everything into such a short space of time!
"We have a bit of strength in depth now with players coming back, and everyone who was injured previously appears to have got through the Derby game ok. I'm looking forward to the challenge now of picking the team for Barnsley."
That team will have to be at its best in South Yorkshire, not least because Simon Davey's men turned over one of the key Play-Off contenders in their own back yard in the Bank Holiday fixture.
"Barnsley had a great win on Boxing Day, because not many teams will go to Burnley and do that," admitted Irvine. "It's a big boost for them, and we obviously had somebody watching that game, so I'm keen to know how that went.
"I went straight home after the Derby game and started thinking about Barnsley. You have to do that because otherwise you could end up running out of time, so the key is just to get going with the video work because there's not really very much time to be doing that on Saturday. I won't be looking at Liverpool until after the Barnsley game because it could take quite a lot of time looking at all their strengths!
"Rather than doing video work on the Boxing Day game, we have to do it on an earlier game, but having someone at the game at Turf Moor means we've got someone we can speak to about it, and it wasn't that long ago since we last played them, so we know a fair deal about Barnsley from that."
The last game of 2008 will bring the curtain down on an excellent calendar year for the boss, with the November 2007 recruit having overseen some tremendous results in an uplifting spell for everyone at Deepdale.
"There's a big difference between now and this time last year," he explained. "I remember sitting down then and saying that I hoped 2008 would be a better year for everybody connected with Preston North End, and it has been. If we can finish it off with another victory then that will mean we end the year in an even better position that we're in now.
"2007 was a bad year, 2008 has been a good year, and we'll have to make sure that 2009 is an even better year. It would be a great way to end 2008 if we can go to Barnsley and get a victory."
