PNE.Com speaks to attacking full back Scott Laird ahead of this weekend's game against Yeovil Town at Deepdale...
“If you look at the statistics, a lot of games are won in the final 20 minutes, a lot of goals are scored in that time period and if we can keep on improving our fitness it can only help us and hinder the opposition.”“Fitness will never be an issue, it has a big pitch does Deepdale and we are using that to our advantage to overrun teams.
“We pride ourselves on fitness, we worked hard during pre-season and we are working hard every day on the training field.
“If that happens then you are at risk of falling behind but we want to be in the hunt after 12 games and we can push on from there.
He continued: “We want to win every game that we play, there is no point winning and then losing the following match.
Right up until the final game of the season away at Sheffield United on April 27th, PNE will play twice a week, with Laird stressing their fitness levels will be counted for as the season goes on.
With 12 games gone so far this season in all competitions, North End know they are still at the beginning of their 2012/13 quest, with 38 league games yet still to play and 114 points up for grabs.
“Saturday is our first game, we will be doing everything that we can, and we will be doing our homework on Yeovil so we are ready.”
“The league is our bread and butter; we have got three league games coming up now in a row before our next cup game and we will be looking to pick up three points in every game.
“We have to head into Saturday’s game and not think about the last two results, we are at home so we want to get the supporters behind us and post three points on the board.
“We have to look back at what we did wrong in those two games because we obviously did do things wrong because we lost.
“The last two results have been disappointing, we shouldn’t have conceded three goals on Tuesday, but we have to forget about that and learn from the mistakes that we made and rectify them for Saturday.
“Yeovil is 15 miles away from where I come from, I have got a few friends who play for them but that makes no difference to the game itself, we are focused on beating whoever we play.
“I am treating Saturday as any other game, it is the next match on schedule and we have been concentrating on the game from this morning onwards on beating Yeovil Town,” said the 24-year-old.
Laird, born and raised in Somerset, is ready to help put things right this weekend, as North End prepare to play three League One matches in seven days, starting against Gary Johnson’s men.
PNE defender Scott Laird grew up only 15 miles away from Yeovil Town’s home stadium, but will show no sentiment towards the Glovers when the two sides meet this weekend.