Club captain Alan Browne admitted he loves the role which he’s been playing for Preston North End so far this season.
PNE’s No.8 has been utilised in a more attacking position compared to the majority of matches during the 2022/23 campaign, playing alongside Mads Frøkjær in behind striker Will Keane.
In what has been a positive start to the season for the team as a whole, the skipper has really impressed and played a key role in the early success.
“I love it,” he told iFollow PNE. “I much prefer being higher up and pressing from the front.
“I think it utilises me as a player a lot more when I can get after people and stop the attacks from the back because often teams in this league are trying to play now.
“Once you get into that middle and final third that’s where the best players come alive so if we can prevent that from happening and stop the ball from getting there then that’s utilising one of my strengths.
“I’ve had a few chances as well, probably could have a goal or two, but I think they’ll soon come.”
Having taken seven points from the opening league matches, things couldn’t have started much better for Ryan Lowe’s men.
PNE have had to contend with injuries to what some might call key players, too – with the substitutes bench mainly made up of young players with little or no experience in the senior game.
Browney said: “It’s been good. I think we’ve changed slightly how we’ve been playing compared to last year, trying to stick to what we’re good at and I think it’s worked so far for us.
“Obviously we could have got another couple of points and maybe still be in the cup, that was disappointing, but in terms of where we’re at it’s a great start.
“It was three tough fixtures in the league and we’ve managed to get seven points from them so I think it’s really positive.
“But I think we’ve got to be realistic as well. We’re only a couple of injuries away from a bit of a bad patch so we need to get bodies back as soon as we can and hopefully that will give the bench a bit of a boost, and we can keep the results coming.”
Saturday’s match will be followed by an away trip to the bet365 Stadium to take on Stoke City, and then comes the first international break of the season.
The manager has said previously that he’s got a points tally in his mind which he’d like to achieve before that pause to Championship action.
Browney added: “It'll be nice to take a few points from these next two games, but we’re not going to take them lightly.
“They’re two really tough games to go into an international break, but it’s not going to define our season.
“We want to win as many games as we can, if not we make sure we don’t lose, and I think that’s the way we need to go into every game.
“We spoke about it over pre-season how we’re going to approach games and how we’re going to adapt our mindset because I think a lot of times we went on a good run – two games in this league is a good run – so you win two games and then maybe you take your foot off the gas.
“That can’t be the case because you’ve seen last season where we didn’t set the world alight and we came into really close contact with the top six and had a great chance at one point.
“So if we can keep getting, even if it’s a point out of every game, then those little points here and there will add up to get us to where we want to be.”