Ryan Lowe isn’t taking form or league position into account ahead of Saturday’s Lancashire derby.
The manager will take his side to Bloomfield Road for the first time this weekend to take on a Blackpool side who sit just above the bottom three, having won twice in their last 11 league outings.
Their run of results has no importance to Ryan, though, as he feels everything goes out the window in a game like this.
Asked if he would pay attention to their form, the manager said: “No, not at all because let’s have it right, they’ve got some good players, but so have we.
“They’ll be well coached and well drilled in terms of what they’ve got to do. We know that.
“They’ve had some good results, some not-so-good results, a bit indifferent, but I think in a derby most results and performances go out the window because there’s a team standing in your way to stop you doing that and it’s the same for us.
“But we’ve got to go there full of confidence, on a bit of a high, and performing and playing well off the back of a good result, and hopefully we can get a positive result.”
One thing which is almost always true about derbies is there tends to be plenty of aggression and fight on show, which Ryan feels will need to be managed to an extent.
“They will,” said Ryan, about his players managing those levels. “We’ll make sure they do that; of course it remains to be seen on the pitch on Saturday afternoon, but we’ve got to have a nice calmness about us.
“There’s a derby going on and two sets of fans are going to be wanting a win for their team, and us more than anyone.
“Ultimately you’ve got to keep a cool head with what you’re doing on Saturday afternoon because you can’t let your head go in these types of situations. That’s one thing we’ll be concentrating on looking at.”
Last season’s trip to Bloomfield Road was a disappointing one – before Ryan was in charge – but the fixture at Deepdale in April was much more memorable from a North End perspective.
Cameron Archer’s fantastic finish in the second half earned the home side three points on that occasion and, while it’s a night the gaffer remembers fondly, it’s not something he is spending too much time thinking about ahead of the weekend.
He said: “We’ve obviously got different personnel. I haven’t taken into account what happened last time.
“I think the group has changed since then but away from home you want to go and put on a show, and put a performance on like we have done of late.
“It’s come at a good time for us now. We’ve just come off the back of a good result and a good performance – which is a bit different for them – but it’s football, isn’t it?
“Anything can happen, as you’ve seen, you look at the results last night [Wednesday] and there were some bizarre results, and what we can’t do is take anything for granted.
“We’ve got to make sure we put the gameplan together, we stick to the gameplan, have fire in our bellies but have a cool head, because that’s what derbies need.”