In Saturday’s third edition of The One And Only of the season, the cover star is Sky Bet Championship player of the month nominee Darnell Fisher, who has settled into life at Deepdale very quickly.
Speaking to the matchday programme, the young full back has enjoyed the start to his time in PR1 and is looking to push on after the international break.
He believes the work-rate that is coming from the team in games comes from the hard work the team do on the training pitches during the week, which then sets them in good stead for a positive season and thinks there is a lot more still to come from a team that has only been beaten by a penalty in its opening five games.
“The training – when it’s hard everyone is competitive, but that’s what you really want – that’s what makes it so good. The manager pushes us every day and it’s really intense, it’s good though.
“You could see in the last home game that we were all over Reading in the first half – we pummelled them – so you train like we want to play on a Saturday and it works.
“You can see it, but we’re in good condition – and we train hard, every day we train it’s a hard session so it helps us on a Saturday.
“It has been a tough start when you look at it, but we have more than held our own in all of the games and we were unfortunate in most of the games not to pick up points and score more goals.
“In that respect you’ve got to look at it and go ‘the future looks good’ and we just need to keep progressing well and doing well.
“We are happy to be the underdog every week and just not speak a lot. We need to keep doing what we’re doing and turn around results when we can.
“There is a lot of quality in the dressing room - a lot of quality – which people won’t be expecting until they play against us and they think ‘oh yeah, they are a good team’, but that’s fine for us - that’s perfect.
“It is ideal, let everyone else outside talk and we’ll just carry on doing what we do and see where we go.
“Everyone is on board with what the manager wants as well. Everyone is pulling in the right direction which is perfect for us. It was a young team out there in the last couple of games and we more than did alright.
“I don’t think I’ve ever said that I am one of the older members of a defence – not professionally anyway. Thinking about it, it is a weird one, but it’s good!
“The fans have welcomed me really well, they didn’t know much about me before I came, I was at Rotherham and we got relegated, so as a defender that doesn’t look very good, but coming here they’ve welcomed me with open arms, but I think more importantly it is about getting your team-mates to trust you and they need to know you are willing to go to war with them and that’s a big bonus.”
There’s plenty more from the No.14 in Saturday’s 100-page edition of the programme, which also features interviews and features with Declan Rudd, Daniel Johnson, Ben Davies, Tom Barkhuizen and former PNE and Barnsley striker Iain Hume.
We hear from Brian Mooney in our ‘plastic fantastic’ feature, plus all the usual features and historical articles to give you plenty to read before and after the match!
On sale from Friday afternoon from the club’s ticket office and on the day inside and outside the ground for just £3, make sure you don’t miss out.