Ryan Lowe will be freshening things up for Tuesday’s Carabao Cup round one clash at Deepdale but stresses North End won’t underestimate opponents Salford City.
PNE will face the Sky Bet League Two side for the first time in competitive action as both sides look to progress to the second round.
Having only kicked the season off at the weekend, changes are expected to be made for the cup tie, but the manager has full faith in whoever it is who gets the nod.
Ryan said: “There will be a couple of changes of course because we’ve got to make sure we freshen up, but we feel like the changes we’re making are still solid to potentially progress.
“We can’t underestimate Salford of course because they’ve done alright last season.
“They’ve got a young coach who’s playing a good brand of football and we know where they’re trying to get to, so we’ve got to make sure there’s no slip ups with there being a bit of a cup upset because we don’t want that.
“There’s a few young lads who probably need a bit more gametime as well and a few lads that need some more minutes so we’ll look into that and factor it into the team we pick today, but as I say we feel we’ll be strong enough to get a result.”
The manager had said towards the end of last week that Calvin Ramsay would make his competitive debut for the club in this fixture, but he’s not quite ready and won’t be available to feature.
Greg Cunningham will also miss out but is back in full-time training, while Layton Stewart is undergoing a three to four-week programme to help the young striker get built and ready for the demands of the Championship.
It remains to be seen what sort of a side Salford City will put out, with their priority no doubt being on going a step better than last season when they were beaten in the Play-Off semi-final on penalties.
Ryan said: “I expect a good footballing team coming to stamp their authority down and that’s what we’ve got to be careful of.
“I’ve been an underdog as a League Two manager up against a Championship team and there’s loads of factors that come with it.
“They’ve obviously got owners that are desperately trying to get out of League Two and get up to League One and then the Championship – that’s no secret of theirs.
“We’ve got to make sure they don’t come to our place and spoil a party in terms of getting to the next round of the Carabao Cup because it’s important that we continue the cup runs as well as the Championship which is obviously our main aim.
“We’re expecting a tough game. They’ve got some good footballers, some who’ve played at Championship level, and they play a good brand of football so we’ve got to make sure that we give them the respect they deserve.”