Ryan Lowe is a “big believer” that his side’s form at Deepdale will improve, as PNE head into a month featuring four home games.
North End will kick February off on Saturday afternoon when Bristol City are the visitors to Lancashire, before Luton Town, Wigan Athletic and Coventry City also come to Deepdale later this month.
So far this season, the Lilywhites have accumulated more points on the road than back at home, having won four games in all competitions in PR1.
Ryan told iFollow: “The Deepdale form we know hasn’t been good enough, but at some point it’s got to change.
“I remember sitting here with you when we weren’t scoring goals and we had six or seven clean sheets, and it changed and we started scoring goals and winning games.
“I’m a big believer that [form at] Deepdale will change as well. We’ve just got to make sure that we keep doing the right things and don’t go away from what we’ve been doing because everything’s the same.
“The prep’s the same, but we’re hoping this weekend we can get on the front foot early doors and get right after Bristol City because it’s going to be important that we do that to get the fans behind us.
“If they can get behind us like they did against Tottenham then it’ll give us the best possible chance of winning the game of football.”
With six games to come between now and the end of the month, there’s plenty of points to be picked up.
Bristol City will be looking to make a push themselves from their current position of 17th in the table, and they head into the weekend having not tasted defeat in their last seven games.
Ryan said: “It is a good month and there’s some good games in there, isn’t there?
“But, first and foremost, we’re up against a Bristol City team who are going about their business okay at the moment.
“Yeah they’re down in the bottom half and I’m sure they don’t want to be there of course, but they’re only a win or two away from getting to the top end like most teams are in and around the tight Championship.
“In terms of the games now until 4th March when we play Watford, I think there’s seven games to go, so we’ve got to get a real foothold of this and try and get as many points as we possibly can.
“Once you have ten to go or 11 to go you sort of find out where you’re potentially going to finish, so we just want to make sure we give ourselves the best possible chance of staying in the top half of the division.”
The manager has no new injury concerns to worry about, with only long-term absentee Emil Riis ruled out.
Deadline day addition Josh Onomah will be eligible to play, however he is lacking match fitness having not played much with Fulham during the first half of the season.
Bristol City on the other hand also have a few new faces, with forwards Anis Mehmeti and Harry Cornick in line to make their debuts this weekend.
Ryan added: “They’re in good form themselves. They’ve changed formation a little bit as well along the way and they’ve got some good players, so we know what to expect from Bristol City, but it’s about what we’re going to have to do.
“We’re going to have to take some shackles off the players and let’s go for it, have a real good go.
“We’ve got 18 games to go now. We’ve got to have a real good go in the remaining games because it’s important we can try and stay in the top half of the division, and that’ll be the message to the boys.”