Now that the pre-season calendar is all wrapped up, Darnell Fisher believes North End are in good stead heading into the new season after facing a variety of opposition and overcoming various scenarios throughout the past month.
Fisher and the Lilywhites ended the season with a victory against Oldham Athletic today, and the right back spoke of a different kind of challenge that they’ve faced compared to the previous games.
“It was a tough first half but we needed that different sort of test because we’re going to face that in the season so we’ve managed to get the 3-0 and the clean sheet which is important," analysed Fisher post-match to the club's media channel.
“They were smart and played a different sort of game. They frustrated us, pressed us and made tackles when they needed to which is obviously good as the season starts next week and that’s what you want. We got in at half-time and the manager has had a word and we’ve put them to bed in the second half.
“We’ve been playing completely different teams like West Ham which is what we need as we’ll have different tests in the season, and Oldham’s another test for us so hopefully the pre-season will stand us in good stead.”
Picking the starting XI for the first game of the season is always a difficult choice for any manager, and Fisher believes that the gaffer has some tough decisions ahead of him, but also pointed out the quality of the players at his disposal.
“I wouldn’t’ like to be in the gaffers shoes but it will be interesting to see who he picks but I’m sure everybody who he does pick will be ready.
“We moved the ball a bit too slow in the first half and the manager told us that we needed to be quicker and we did that in the second half and caused them problems.”
Head to iFollowPNE to watch Darnell’s interview in full later on.