North End boss Graham Westley said his team would be making sure their preparations were in order as the Sky cameras arrive at Deepdale for Sunday’s League One clash with MK Dons.
The television coverage means an early kick-off for the Lilywhites and the manager said this meant that the team would have to make sure everything was considered in order to be ready for the game.
“Between now and the weekend we have to make sure that physically we get ourselves into the right condition to go and play at that different start time,” he told the gathered press ahead of the fixture. “It is something we are familiar with managing and I am sure we’ll be right at 1.15pm on Sunday.
“You can never say that being on the TV is just another game, because players will think about the cameras and if players are thinking about it, you’d be daft to ignore it. But at the same time, you are just playing for three points, the same as last weekend. But hopefully we won’t approach it like we did last weekend; hopefully we’ll be in much better shape.
“Our performances at Deepdale have been strong on the whole, but we must not take that for granted, we have to remember what has been working for us here and we are all looking forward to the game.
“If someone had said to me at the end of last season that we would play MK Dons in game 12 and if we beat them we would go above them I think I would probably have taken that. I would have fancied them to be up there. They are an established top six club, they have been up there season after season with no real change happening, so you would expect them to sustain that position.”
The gaffer goes into the game against Karl Robinson’s Dons with some selection dilemmas after some excellent performances at Morecambe on Tuesday and he admits that the whole squad will be in the reckoning when he comes to put his team on paper.
“We have seen fairly consistently through the opening weeks of the season, that when the lads have been called upon, they have come in and performed very well.
“It is important that players understand that selection will always be fair and that what they do on the training ground will be noticed.
“Their time is more than likely to come and they have to understand what they need to do to make sure their time does come,” he added.
Remember tickets are on general sale for all areas and when you purchase a ticket for the big game on Sunday you can buy a half price ticket for the next big game, against Sheffield United, the following week! The ticket and retail store is open until 6pm on Friday and from 9am until 5pm on Saturday and again from 9am on matchday, with the hotline – 0844 856 1966 – open during the same hours. You can also buy online at MyPNE.Com until midnight on Saturday with collections on the day.