PNE.Com speaks to midfielder Nicky Wroe ahead of the Club’s meeting with his former employers.
The 27-year-old spent 18 months at the Greenhous Meadow, and was a member of the Shrews’ squad that won promotion to League One last season, before he moved to Deepdale on a free transfer in the summer.
“It’s always nice to play your former club,” Wroe revealed in an exclusive chat with PNE.Com. “It adds that extra spice to a game.
“They were the first fixtures I looked for back at the start of the season. I’m hoping to do well and prove I made the right decision to move on in the summer.
“I really enjoyed my time at Shrewsbury. It’s a really nice place to live and the club were really good to me. I have many good memories from my time there but I couldn’t turn down a club with the sort of stature as Preston North End.”
Wroe continued: “I’m looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and hopefully getting one over on them. It’s always nice to see players that you’ve played with. I made some good friends during my time there and it will be nice to see them but the objective will be getting three points.”
“It would be nice to get a goal against them too, but the main thing is we need to get back to winning ways as soon as possible.
“We got a good result against Coventry last weekend, but it wasn’t the best. Now it is up to us to make sure we build on that.”
North End made the long trip down south to face Crawley Town during the week, only for the game to be called off an hour before kick-off.
While Wroe was disappointed at the latest postponement, he admits that the referee made the right decision, and that the Lilywhites have made up for their night off with extra work on the training ground.
“It was disappointing to get all the way down there only for it to be called off just an hour before kick-off, but these things happen and it was probably the right decision,” Wroe said.
“The pitch looked in a bit of poor condition, and it was a really windy night as well, so maybe we can go back down there in better conditions and be allowed to express ourselves a lot more.
“It wasn’t going to be a good pitch. Whenever it’s muddy and the ball’s stopping and not rolling properly then it’s going to cause problems.”
He added: “We’ve looking forwards to Saturday now. The postponement has given us a couple more days on the training field, and we’re preparing as best as we can to make sure we put a team out there that’s going to do the job and get all three points.”
Having recorded their first home point of 2013 last weekend against promotion hopefuls Coventry City, Wroe is hopeful North End can claim their first win under the famous Deepdale floodlights this calendar year.
“Our performances haven’t been good enough in recent weeks,” Wroe said. “We haven’t found our form from earlier in the season, especially at home. We need to get that back as soon as possible.
“We haven’t won at home in the league for a long time so it would be a good time to get our first win of 2013.
“When games come think and fast it’s always good that you can hopefully get a bit of momentum. Hopefully we can get a win this weekend which could help kick-start everything off.”
“I want to score as many goals as possible to help the team win. It was good to get back on the score-sheet on Saturday. It was my first for a while.
“I’ve missed a few opportunities, especially in the last ten games or so which I probably should have put away, so I’m hoping to make up for that by scoring a few more between now and the end of the season. Hopefully my goal against Coventry can be the turning point.”