Regis Le Bris has confirmed that Alan Browne will start on Wednesday night against the team he spent a decade with. This comes as no surprise given Jobe's suspension, but thankfully Chris Rigg appears to be okay and will likely partner Browne in those advanced midfield positions.
DESERVES TO PLAY
“He will play, and he deserves to play obviously, because he's a great professional with good experience, good leadership - quiet leadership, but strong leadership. Obviously our midfielders played very well since the beginning of the season and for Browney, he needed to wait. But, he knows that that league is so long that he was sure he'll have opportunities to play. It's now and he did well, so I'm confident for him.”
RIGGY CHEST ISSUE
“Obviously, when we think about a problem in the chest we can think many, many, many things about the issue. But fortunately, it wasn't bad and he trained very well this morning - so I'm very pleased for sure. Pleased for him and pleased for the team, because he's very important for us.
TRIANGLES ON THE RIGHT WING
“For the balance of the team, it's very interesting on that side with Patrick (Roberts), with Trai (Hume). They are playing so well in that triangle and when you lose an element like that, we need to recreate or rebuild something new - so you need time and sometimes it's different with a different output. But, it's important for us and I'm happy he will be in the team for Preston.”
PNE GAMEPLAN
“The league is very competitive and every team is proactive so even if you are in the bottom of the table the team doesn't wait for a mistake. They try to push. They try to use the man-for-man marking... and it's not a passive opponent. I'm sure that Preston won't be passive against us. They can manage the man-for-man marking, for example.
QPR/LUTON SIMILARITIES
"They are strong, they are very intense, so it will be a good challenge for us again after Luton, after QPR. We'll see if we learned from this experience, it wasn't bad games for us but we need to improve to reach different new levels, especially for the goal kick restart for example or the build-up under pressure and it will be interesting to see if we are improving.”
BACK FIVE?
“I don't think so. I explained that idea before, we built a system, strong foundations and I don't want to change too early the structure because I think we have now good references and we can change during some phases the shape but it's just because we need to solve a problem. For example, we use the back five with a midfielder and not with a centre-back because it's needed during the game but I think we'll work on the back four. I don't know the scenario of the season but atthe minute it's better to play like that because we share the references and we have so much to do to improve and to go further, so at the minute I don't think I'm going to change.”
