Ryan Lowe is hoping for an entertaining game of football this weekend against a Bristol City side who he expects to be a different outfit than the reverse fixture.
North End kicked off the 2023/24 campaign with a 1-1 draw at Ashton Gate, thanks to a late leveller from Will Keane.
The Robins have made a change in the dugout since, though, with Liam Manning being appointed head coach in November 2023 and arriving with a different philosophy to his predecessor Nigel Pearson.
In comparison to August, Ryan said: “I think they’ll be more attacking. They’ll be more on the front foot. They’ll be more aggressive in everything they do.
“They play a little bit more football. The players haven’t changed, there’s one or two who have come in the team who weren’t in the team, but I think Liam’s got a good style and a good brand of football.
“He’ll try and play on the front foot and interchange players with rotations.
“It’s a game we’re looking forward to. That’s what we want to try and bring to the party also.
“Hopefully it’s a good game with good entertaining football, and we can come out on top.”
The manager is viewing the match at Deepdale as an opportunity to get “back on track” following a dip in form in recent months.
Ryan is asking his side to take the positives from their performance against Chelsea last weekend in the Emirates FA Cup.
North End were backed by a 6,000-strong away end who were in fine voice all evening, and the manager is wanting his side to do their bit to get those fans off their seats.
“We understand we have to do our bit on the pitch,” he said. “As you’ve seen against Chelsea, the lads were immense for large parts of that game and so were the fans.
“At the end they showed their appreciation for the players. It was excellent. What we need is [to be a] collective all together and to stick with each other.
“Stick with us until the final whistle because we’ve got to make sure we can hopefully get our season back on track from Saturday.
“No disrespect to Bristol City. They’re a good team, they’re well coached and they’ve got some good players, but it’ll be about what we do on Saturday afternoon.
“There’s been too many bumps in the road. We want to try and get to a flat road where we can start putting points on the board and climb up the table.”
In an effort to try and get that form back, Ryan and his staff have been having one-on-one conversations and unit meetings with the players to highlight areas where things are going well and what can be improved on.
The gaffer has said recently about the need to get back to what they were doing so well towards the beginning of the season, and that’s the case again this weekend.
Ryan said: “If we can do the simple stuff better then it gives yourself an opportunity to win any game of football and they’re the messages to the players.
“We’ve spoken to individuals as I’ve said. We’ve had a collective meeting with defenders and the training pitch is the most important thing.
“That’s what we’ll continue to do today definitely out of possession, in possession on Friday, and let’s go and attack the game.
“We need to be on the front foot. We need to be us. If we are us, then there’s a good opportunity of getting a result.”