Manager Simon Grayson wants a performance on Saturday to whet the supporters’ appetites ahead of the sale of season tickets for next season.
Speaking as he looked ahead to the final home game of the 2012/13 campaign, the PNE boss said: “We want to sign off with a win at home. Since we have been involved at the football club, Deepdale
has been a good place for us. We’ve had a couple of draws, but the rest have been victories for us and we want to maintain that.
“We want our fans to go home in a really buoyant mood, thinking ‘I like the look of this team’ and with the thoughts of what we might do over the summer, hopefully they will buy their season tickets and be back next year. Come Saturday night, we want everybody to be impressed with the team and hopefully we’ll get a good gate for the last game.”
Deepdale has become something of a fortress again since the change of manager, with just one goal conceded in the last six games, where the Lilywhites have gone unbeaten and the manager admits he would rather the season not come to an end!
!We have scored goals and we have kept clean sheets and we are probably a little bit disappointed that the season is going to finish as quickly as it has done, because we feel that if we’d taken points against orient and Portsmouth at home and we’d had another half dozen games, we would have had a real opportunity to get into that top six.
“That is not to be, but we want to give the fans something to cheer about, so they can go away and think we’ve done well and can look forward to the following season.”
The opposition, however, have plenty to play for and North End know it will be a tough test against the Wirral club: “Tranmere need a win if they are to have a chance of getting into the Play-Off positions,” added the gaffer. “They know they will be coming to Deepdale where we are playing well and they know they’ll be in for a tough game, but so do we.
“Things haven’t gone well for them recently, but they have done very well this year.
“There’s still a lot to play for in the next three games. Tranmere and Sheffield United will probably be hoping that we’ve downed tools, but we certainly won’t be, because we want to be winning games and we owe it to the other teams to be giving it our best shot, because there’s a lot still to play for, for everyone connected with the Club.”