Preston North End Vs Stoke City
Coca-Cola Championship Tuesday 26th February 2008
Tuesday nights at Deepdale usually end up with one out come, or at least it has since February 2001 when Preston last suffered in a Tuesday night league game. After important wins against the likes of West Brom - Preston's last Tuesday night game at home, the players will be confident of extending the aforementioned run to 32 games without defeat as they take on Championship leaders Stoke City.
Stoke of course currently field a number of players who will know all about Preston's Tuesday night record and have contributed to that record themselves; namely, Richard Cresswell, Ricardo Fuller, Danny Pugh and Marlon Broomes. All of which will be looking to put the record to an end in their attempt to win promotion to the Premier League whilst in the process, getting one over their former employers as they did in the reverse fixture at the Britannia Stadium.
Stoke, who are looking to make it six wins on the bounce, face a Preston who will be looking to build on the well fought point they picked up at Vicarage Road at the weekend and move out of the bottom three.
Previous Meetings
The reverse fixture, which was as near as January 19th, where Stoke beat Preston 3-1 at home. Two goals from Leon Cort and one from Preston old boy Richard Cresswell proved to be too much for Preston, despite Chris Brown getting his first for his new club. Last season's visit to The Britannia stadium saw a 1-1 draw which was followed by a dramatic game at Deepdale ending in a 3-2 win for Preston, despite going two goals down.
Team News
Preston will be without Lewis Neal still after he is still recovering from a hamstring injury. New goal keeper, Gregorsz Szamotulski picked up a medial ligament injury which will force him to miss out. Alan Irvine is expected to name the same team that drew with Watford at the weekend.
Stoke will have former Preston loanee Paul Gallagher available for selection and are expected to name an unchanged team from that that faced Ipswich on Saturday.