New manager bounce has made Preston preparation difficult for Hatters boss

Luton boss Rob Edwards admitted the new manager bounce that Preston North End could receive has made planning for this afternoon’s trip to Deepdale that bit more difficult for him and his coaching staff.

The Lilywhites appointed former Sheffield United and Leeds United boss Paul Heckingbottom on Tuesday, after Ryan Lowe had left the club by mutual consent following just one game of the campaign earlier this month. Although Edwards has come up against his opposite number twice before, enjoying a 100 percent winning record following victories with the Hatters and when in charge of Watford, then with little knowledge on how he will set his team up, it has meant the build-up has been based more around what Town can do than their opponents.

He said: “It’s difficult. We’ve had to make this week more about ourselves. We can give information about the players and talk about what we think they might do, but we don’t know, so it’s difficult, Hecky could come in and think, right, I want to show something completely different and change it up. Or not, he might think, right I don't want to tinker too much, keep some consistency and use the international break to work.

"There’s all sorts of things he can do, but clearly he’ll feel they’ve got enough there to play a certain way and win the game. We’ve got to make sure we treat it like we do every single game, with the utmost respect. It’s going to be difficult, and with that new manager bounce and because it’s so early in the season as well, we’ve had to base a lot of this week on us, make sure we do everything right.”

After finishing in 10th last term, Preston have had a tough start to the season, losing both of their opening two Championship matches, without scoring a goal and shipping five in defeats to Sheffield United and Swansea. They did beat Sunderland 2-0 in the Carabao Cup though and possess former Wigan, Hull and Manchester United forward Will Keane in attack, the striker reaching double figures in the league last campaign.

On the threat ahead for Town, Edwards added: “It’s not just Keane, there’s (Emil) Riis, (Sam) Greenwood, there’s others on that top line, but then they’ve still got lots of strength there and are a good Championship team. We’ve been able to go through a lot of the individuals and players will get a lot of that information.

"We can never be sure, that’s why we’ve had to try and prepare as much as possible on us, which is generally the case anyway, but even more so. We can work on where we think they might try and expose us, work on those sorts of things, where we think the areas are we can try and hurt them as well, but the game could be completely different, and that's where we’ve got to make the decisions when the whistle goes.”