Carabao Cup victory would be just the tonic for Preston North End says Frankie McAvoy

Lilywhites head coach McAvoy admitted he and his staff had ‘tortured’ themselves going back over the footage of Saturday’s 4-1 reverse.

However, now is the time to draw a line under it and the focus is trained on tonight’s visit to Field Mill (7.45pm).

It is the second campaign running that PNE and the Stags have met at that this stage of the competition, last August’s tie being at Deepdale with North End winning 4-0.

McAvoy might give some of Saturday’s side the chance for redemption but he’s also mindful of having a big squad at his disposal.

“The lads are desperate to get out on the pitch to try and put things right after Saturday but we also have to be mindful that this is the second of three games this week,” said McAvoy.

“We’ve got Alan Browne coming back from a problem with his hip, Ched Evans only managed a couple of days training last week due to the issue with his foot.

“So we need to be mindful of situations like that. We will use the numbers that we need to try and get a victory.

“The Hull defeat was a sore one for us, we’ve tortured ourselves in the last couple of days watching it back.

“We know where we went wrong, we tried to change it during the game.

“The good thing is that we have got a chance to try and quickly put things right.

“It’s like that in the Championship and the Carabao Cup, there is often another game straight away.

“We need to put Hull to the back of our minds now and focus on what the task is ahead of us – that is Mansfield.”

Sean Maguire and Scott Sinclair are back in contention for tonight after having to isolate in recent days.

Tom Bayliss’ isolation which is from a different ‘ping’ has a little longer to run.

There will be no Declan Rudd tonight, concussion protocol seeing to that.

The keeper got a bang on the head early in the Hull game and had to be replaced from the bench by Daniel Iversen.

Whether Iversen plays at Mansfield or is saved for the Reading game on Saturday, remains to be seen – Connor Ripley and Mathew Hudson are the other choices.

There could be a start for Daniel Johnson who was a second-half sub against Hull.

His pre-season was spent at the Gold Cup in the United States with Jamaica.

Said McAvoy: “DJ is a very good forward player and there are a few of them pushing for that attacking midfield place.

“He did well when he came on against Hull and hasn’t done his chances any harm.”