After three successive away trips, Ryan Lowe is pleased to be returning home to Deepdale this weekend as his PNE side host Birmingham City.
North End have been on the road for the past week and a half, starting with a Carabao Cup tie against Wolves, before taking four points from trips to Cardiff and Coventry City.
Those two league matches saw the Lilywhites extend their unbeaten start to the season to seven matches, while they also reached as many games without conceding.
That’s a run which Ryan Lowe will be hoping can continue this weekend when John Eustace brings his Birmingham City side to Lancashire, following a 2-1 midweek defeat against Norwich City.
Ryan told iFollow PNE: “I’m pleased to be back because we’ve had three away games on the bounce, and to get back to Deepdale, which we’ve obviously said we want to make a fortress this year. Saturday’s going to be no different.
“We’re going to go out to try and get the win, of course, but there’s a team standing in our way who will be wanting to put their wrongs right from Tuesday.
“I watched them there and I thought they were excellent in everything they did in different ways, and were undone by a good Norwich team who found themselves getting two goals.
“But in terms of Birmingham and what John Eustace is trying to do, they’re a different team, trying to play the right way, so it’s going to be a tough encounter, we know that.
“But we’re in good form ourselves, we’re on home turf and we’ve got to go out there on Saturday afternoon, and hopefully try and get maximum points.”
North End’s three league games at Deepdale so far this season have brought three draws, however the manager definitely feels more points could have been collected in those matches.
Nevertheless, points have been taken and his side are still yet to experience defeat in league action this term.
“We don’t want to lose games,” added Ryan. “We want to win as many games as we can.
“We’ve had a few draws as we know. We scored a fantastic goal yesterday [against Coventry] and I thought we were well worthy of a couple more to be honest. It could have been a little bit different if the ‘keeper does get sent off.
“So we are in good form, we’re unbeaten and we want to continue that. At some point, there’s going to be a stage where you lose a game of football, that’s fine, there’s no problem in that. It’s how you lose it.
“If I lose a game of football by doing the right things there’s no problem by me, but more importantly we want to try and keep that lead, in terms of not conceding any goals.
“We want to keep being unbeaten as long as we can, and we want to keep winning games and scoring goals, and that’s going to be the aim on Saturday.”
In terms of team news, Andrew Hughes is still feeling the effects of a shoulder injury, while Bambo Diaby and Sean Maguire are both in training, and the latter’s return may be fast-tracked due to the injury to Ben Woodburn.
The former Liverpool man made his first league start for the club in the victory over Coventry City, but was forced off after rolling his ankle in the second half.
“He’s due to get a scan first thing tomorrow [Friday] morning,” Ryan confirmed. “He’s been analysed this morning from the medical team, he’s come in on crutches today.”
The manager later added: “These things happen don’t they, injuries and whatnot, but hopefully it’s not too long because he’s been in great form.
“On the training pitch he’s been fantastic. I think he warranted a start yesterday night and he did fantastically well, so we’ll wait for the scan results and we’ll see how he is from there.”