Jordan Storey feels Preston North End’s results at Deepdale could be “season-defining”.
North End have been beaten just once on home turf so far this Sky Bet Championship campaign, having won four matches by 2-1 scorelines, as well as drawing the last two in PR1.
With form at Deepdale having been a concern for large parts of the 2022/23 campaign, the manager and the players were keen to turn their Deepdale fortunes around, and defender Jordan thinks it could be an important factor this campaign.
He said: “I think the fans probably have been looking forward to us putting a few wins together at Deepdale because at the start of last season we really struggled with our home form.
“It wasn’t until the back end of last season that we got the results we wanted, so it’s a really important factor and I think it’s a season-defining factor.
“If we can make Deepdale a really hard place to come and pick up a win or a draw then it’ll help us in the long run.
“Hopefully we can keep it going and hopefully by the end of the season we can look back and say it was a fortress.”
Another feature of PNE’s previous campaign was the amount of clean sheets the side kept, starting the season with seven in a row, and ending the campaign with 17 in total.
26-year-old Jordan admits he and his fellow defenders are desperate to get back to that kind of form, as well as getting back on track after going seven without a victory.
Jordan said: “At the start of the season it was really good; we were really strong.
“We’ve hit a bit of a difficult patch now but I think all the boys, and especially the back lads and the ‘keeper, we’re all positive that we can get a few more clean sheets and pick up a lot more points.
“I think that’s one of the main things we want to get back to, getting the clean sheets going because I think that was a strong factor in us doing well last year: how hard we were to beat against a lot of teams.
“We want to get back to doing that again.”
PNE are back at Deepdale this weekend for the visit of Coventry City, who were a penalty shootout away from Premier League football in May.
However, after losing narrowly to Luton Town, things haven’t quite got going again just yet, but there’s still plenty to be wary of with the quality in the Sky Blues’ ranks.
Jordan added: “I think they’ll be disappointed with how they’ve started the season, but you’ve seen the quality of players they’ve brought in.
“They’ve spent a bit of money and I’m sure their luck will change and they’ll be back up there.”