PNE welcome the early championship leaders, Cardiff to Deepdale on Saturday after a two week international break. Preston lie in 16 place whilst Cardiff top the table, only dropping 2 points from 15 in a draw with West Brom at home (who Preston host on Tuesday). Previous recent encounters between the two teams favour PNE, with Preston winning 3 of the last 4 meetings.
Since the last game, both sides have made additions, most noticeably from Preston, the signing of Neil Mellor from Liverpool for an undisclosed fee. Mellor scored in a mid-week friendly defeat to Crewe but that was only a second string team. In other Preston news, goalkeeper Carlo Nash reckons PNE's second clean sheet isn't too far away, Brett Ormerod is close to making a training comeback after his horrific injury against Leeds in the play off semi-final and PNE have been granted permission to start building the much awaited fourth stand.
Cardiff have brought some players in from last season, Michael Chopra from Newcastle, Willo Flood and a couple of Arsenal youngsters to play alongside their presents stars such as Scimeca, Thompson and Ledley. However they lost star striker, England u21 Cameroon Jerome to Birmingham for £3m. In other news Dave Jones won manager of the month for August after his sides 2-0 victory over second placed Birmingham, and they are also planning to build a new stadium.
Preston go into the game on the back of 2 league draws both ending in 1-1 score lines, whilst Cardiff enter the game having won their last 3 games without conceding.
Preston still have a long injury list including Davidson, Nowland and Ormerod but will hope to give injury prone Mellor his debut whilst Cardiff will hope to field a full strength team with no injury news.
|
