Preston North End's French defender Youl Mawene believes that the PNE squad is the strongest ever during his time at the Club.

The former Lens and Derby man was speaking as the Lilywhites prepared for their trip to Scunthorpe United, a team who Mawene scored against two years ago on a disastrous night at Glanford Park.

Mawene is into his sixth year at Deepdale and after four different managers and three Play-Off campaigns, the centre-half believes that Alan Irvine has assembled North End's best squad yet as they look to launch yet another assault on the Championship.

It's that strength of squad, particularly in defensive areas, which has allowed the 30-year-old extra-time in his rehabilitation from a hamstring injury, but he tells pne.com that he is more than ready to get back into the action.

Youl, we half expected to see you back on PNE duty at the weekend but you weren't in the squad. Was that more a precautionary measure?
Yes, I don't think there was any need at the weekend. Now we have got three fit centre-backs playing really well and the back four is not a place you would want to mess about with and change too much. It just gives me a bit more time to get things right and looking back on it, it is probably the right decision. I've had two little twinges on the same place of the hamstring so it is a matter of being careful and not taking any chances to put things a couple of months back, it was the sensible decision and an intelligent one.

You've come back to training quite quickly, is there always the worry that you might have come back too quickly?
You've got a certain healing time to respect with this type of injury. It's healed quite quickly and that allows me to get on with the football which is the best part of the rehab. There's still a little bit of work to do to strengthen the area and find the reason why it goes, sometimes there is no reason, it's just your body telling you that you have pushed yourself. We just have to be sensible and take care of it.

The three fit centre-halves we have got are more than capable, Sean, Liam and the new arrival Neil Collins.
It's the strongest squad we have had since I've been here, definitely. Even going back to the time when I arrived and we had Claude Davis and Chris Lucketti, back then we had a good team but the squad was kind of weak on numbers - It's not the case now. The seasons are long and if you are going for things you need a good number of players, we've already lost Baz [Nicholson] and Callum [Davidson], so as well as numbers you need quality. The centre-backs we have at the club are quality. It's nice to get Chilla [Chilvers] back, he's been out so long and I've been there, you are kicking your heels and you just want to get on. We've missed him, we missed him last year and he has done so well and I am really happy for him. Together we are going to keep working hard and get to where we want to be.

Our squad strength in particular has often been our downfall. We suffered a few injuries at this stage last season and struggled after a decent start.
Last year I think the number wasn't quite and we had to go into the loan market and eventually it didn't quite work out for us. The staff have thought about that quite cleverly and that is not the case this year. You wish that you could do what Burnley have done and go a full season without major injuries and then your first eleven is out there playing week-in-week-out. In the Championship when you are looking at 50 games a season you know that statistically it is not often the case. This year we have got quantity and quality. It's a good thing because you can have fresh people coming in to the team and doing well.

The current top three is the teams who were relegated from the Premier League and we are at the head of the chasing pack. It's been a fantastic start to the season for Preston.
Really good. Pre-season worked out for most of us and the football that we play is great. We've been with the Gaffer for 18 months now and a lot of things are starting to sink in, the passing and a lot of ideas that he has been throwing at us over the last months. You are looking at the team from above when you are not playing and you are thinking 'wow'. There is some great little football being played here and we are still a long way out, there are still things to improve and to work on. It's a good start but we are not taking things for granted, we will just concentrate on the next game and hopefully take three points from Scunthorpe.

Scunthorpe is never a nice place to go and two years ago, almost to the day, we had an unhappy night there.
Teams like Scunthorpe who get promoted, who look smaller on paper, it never turns out to be what you think. We got caught two years ago, a game where we could have got something out of it, we ended up missing a penalty, having a man sent off and struggling. You have to give them a lot of respect, they've had a brilliant result, they are playing some good stuff at the minute and they were promoted last season, so they know how to win games. It is going to be a tough tough game for us and we are looking for a strong performance, knowing that it is going to be a lot harder than the Swansea game that we had.

How a club does against the smaller clubs and the smaller grounds can make a massive difference at the end of the season?
Our form has improved over the last two years against teams who look like they are struggling or mid-table teams, these were places where we seemed to struggle before. I think the key is to go there without fear but knowing that the start of the game is important and that they are going to have a go and you need to give them as much respect as they deserve. They got promoted from a very hard league and they have got every right to be in this league and they showed at the weekend that if you don't respect them then you are going to get done at Championship level.