Frankie McAvoy is looking for a reaction from his players on Tuesday evening when they face Huddersfield Town.
Preston North End were beaten 2-1 by Reading at the weekend and the head coach sees the game against the Terriers as an opportunity to bounce back.
Huddersfield themselves, though, will be looking to get their first win of the season, after being beaten 5-1 to Fulham, and while he’s aware that may spur them on to come out firing, he’s hoping to see the same from his side.
“Sometimes when you lose you become a wounded animal and I’m hoping that’s the reaction we get from our players when we go and play tomorrow night,” Frankie told iFollow PNE.
“But I’m just looking at ourselves. We’ll give Huddersfield every respect as they’re due, and we’ll try and set up a team that hopefully can go and try and win the game.
“After watching the game back from ourselves [against Reading], on another day we might have got a wee bit of fortune and we’d maybe come away with a point, you never know even three, but at the end of the day we’ve lost.
“Our task now is to start picking up points and hopefully we can start to pick them up quickly.”
Frankie confirmed that striker Ched Evans will be back in contention to face Carlos Corberan’s side, while Tom Bayliss is also back in training after his isolation period.
Still self-isolating, though, will be Tom Barkhuizen, who missed the weekend’s defeat to Reading.
Speaking immediately after the game on Saturday afternoon, PNE’s head coach rued the defending which led to the conceded goals, and he again stressed the importance of tightening up at the back ahead of the Huddersfield fixture.
He said: “Last season we finished on a high, but at the moment in the two games we’ve played we’ve not defended well enough as a unit as a group.
“What we need to do is try and make sure we’re a wee bit more solid at the back because that’s what we managed to build our success in the eight games on.
“So we need to try and get back to that, and obviously with the opportunities and chances up top hopefully we can be clinical enough. First and foremost what we need to do is try and get back to picking up points.”
North End enjoyed their two games against Huddersfield last season, coming out 2-1 and 3-0 winners in the away and home fixtures respectively.
Frankie, though, expects a tricky game this around at the John Smith’s Stadium.
He said: “Obviously they lost on Saturday at home, they’ve got a chance to redeem it quickly with the fans at home.
“[It was a] difficult game to assess because they actually started really well but Fulham have obviously come down from the Premier League.
“They’re a decent team and they’re capable at this level in the Championship of running out worthy winners in games. But before that they did well against Derby and they’re a decent and formidable outfit, so like every game it’ll be another tough game for us.”
Hear more from Frankie on iFollow PNE by clicking on the video at the top of the page.