Preston North End manager, Paul Heckingbottom is defiant in his comments that tonight’s game against Swansea City (7:45pm) is far more important than their forthcoming FA Cup tie against Aston Villa. It’s most certainly an attempt to take his players minds of that tie to concentrate on the league. And with so many glory hunters around their talk is most certainly aimed at the big game rather than tonight.
Heckingbottom was very firm when he talked about this league fixture, "That's why these games, for me, are bigger than when we play Villa. That will take care of itself, but all these league games are really important. Everyone's excited about Villa, I'm not, I'm thinking about Swansea and everyone should be. People walking around talking about Villa tickets - let's beat Swansea, that's it" Of course the Lillywhites can’t take their eyes off the Championship. Heckingbottom is talking about the play offs still, and they are only two points ahead of the Swans. "I have been happy with our form in terms of performances but our points haul needs to change totally. It's not out of the realms of possibility (play offs) but something needs to change in a big way because of the amount of traffic between us and sixth place. That's why these games, for me, are bigger than when we play Villa. That will take care of itself, but all these league games are really important.
PNE are without Mads Frokjaer, Jordan Storey and Ben Whiteman all not available for selection and also have long term injuries in Duane Holmes and Jack Whatmough.
On last weekends result which after such a long time, and a missed weekend it does seem a good while ago, Ben Cabango, Swans captain wants to see more from his team, "Obviously there has been a bit of a gap since the last game, there has been time to take stock but it is important we keep building on it. We have had a few opportunities like this during the season, but we have not been able to build on those positive moments and performances. So we need to try and make sure we do that.”
Joe Allen has travelled north to Preston and will likely be on the bench, and Alan Sheehan has made it clear how the next four games will go under him, "We had a positive performance last time, but there are players who did not play who are putting in a really good effort in training. You have to earn your shirt, you have to train properly every day and have standards. That’s the challenge for every player, we need to have that consistent level.”
Interestingly only one player remains at the Swans since the home win in August, a fixture the Swans won 3-0. Matt Grimes and Azeem Abdulai are now elsewhere. Zān Vipotnik is the only one who remains from that trio. Even Nathan Tjoe-A-On got on the pitch that day. He won’t travel to Lancashire either. What is clear is that Sam Parker won’t be in the squad tonight nor Aimar Govea as they both played in a 3-0 U21 defeat at Brentford yesterday afternoon. Ben Lloyd neither, he is recovering from injury slowly but did okay at Brentford.
The officials are Steve Martin with the whistle who will be assisted by Mark Dwyer and Carl Fitch-Jackson, while David Webb will be the fourth official.Below is the away record when the Swans have been officiated by Martin.
⚽️ REFEREE STEPHEN MARTIN AWAY SWANS RECORD:
Has refereed the Swans 8 times away
Swans Won 4 Drawn 1 Lost 3
For 11 Against 13
Yellow cards: Swans 14 Opponents 10
Red cards: Swans 1 [Piroe] Opponents 1
⚽️ Joel Piroe was sent off by Martin at Burnley in a 4-0 defeat in October, 2022. The Swans record at Deepdale is -
1925-2025
PLAYED: 35
WON: 4
DRAWN 12
LOST: 19
FOR 39 AGAINST 66
Four wins in a hundred years.
Stats by @GwynStato
The last time the Swans won at Deepdale was in 2020, the first time was that 3-1 promotion winning game in 1981, and only two more wins are recorded. In 1993 and 2008. Not a happy hunting ground at all.
It’s good to see Sheehan smiling this week, he isn’t a morose man by any means but definitely thoughtful in every thing that he says, which is a good thing to see and hear. He knows only too well that something from this game is the requirement, and yes we would all settle for a draw ? Whilst going for the win of course.
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