Frankie McAvoy is looking forward to coming up against a familiar face in Russell Martin on Saturday afternoon when he brings his Swansea City side to Deepdale.
The Swansea head coach was captain under McAvoy and Alex Neil during their spell with Norwich City, and Frankie had only good words to say about his ex-skipper.
He always felt Martin would go on to coach later in his career, with the former defender's first job coming at Milton Keynes Dons between 2019 and 2021, before his recent appointment in South Wales.
Frankie said: “I don’t think there were any questions or doubt about that [him becoming coach]. He was our captain when Alex and myself were there and he did really, really well for us.
“He picked up the Play-Off final trophy, played in the Premier League, and he was a real leader within the dressing room.
“He always liked to get on the ball, always liked to play from the back, and he was a legend at Norwich. He was fantastic for us.
“He did really well at MK Dons as his first job and he’s gone in to Swansea, who are a big club, and you can see that he’s starting to put his own stamp on it where they’re looking to try and get on the ball, dominate the ball and looking to play and progress through the thirds.
“It’ll be a formidable game on Saturday because they’re decent when they’ve got the ball so I’m really looking forward to it and looking forward to seeing Russell again.”
Part of Martin's style of play is to get his side playing out from the back and that means there may be the opportunity for a high press to cause the Swans problems.
Especially at an early stage of the season with the side not yet fully accustomed to their new system, Frankie feels they may be able to take advantage of that.
“That’s what we’re hoping we can do,” he said. “They do risk the ball and when you risk it then you obviously leave that option open for you to maybe pounce on it and win it back high up the pitch to try and create opportunities and chances.
“The good thing about us is in terms of creating chances and having shots at goal, we’re in the top six in the league for that, which is good, and we’ll try and do the same on Saturday.
“We’ll be aggressive; we’re at home. I think we did that really well against Peterborough on Saturday and we’ll look to try and do that again, and hopefully Lady Luck shines on us and we’ll manage to get a positive result, but it’ll be a tough game.”
Watch Frankie's full interview with iFollow PNE at the top of this page.