Preston North End manager delivers straight forward target ahead of 10-game countdown

The Lilywhites 2-1 win against Bournemouth last Saturday moved them on to the 50-point mark after 36 matches.

Although they are still within sight of the play-offs, North End have to be mindful that they have played more games than the teams ahead of them.

It’s for that reason Lowe is not setting a points tally target for the squad, instead just sending a ‘win as many as possible’ message to his players.

PNE manager Lowe said: “We are down to our last 10 games. If we had beaten Nottingham Forest the other week and won at Coventry, I would have been standing here saying we want to fight for the play-offs.

"That would have been an extra four points and we’d be on 54 points – we are on 50 points.

"I can’t say we are going to do this or do that, all I’m going to ask the group to do is win as many games as they possibly can and see where that takes us.

"There’s no pressure on them, we will do the best we can.”

Lowe says his players have the company of some big clubs in and around them in the table but won’t let that distract them – he sees North End as a big club in their own way.

It’s two away games next for PNE, with them heading to Cardiff on Saturday and then Luton Town a week tonight.

Said Lowe: “You look at the teams around us, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United, Stoke, West Bromwich.

"They are big clubs, Preston are a big club in their own way.

“On the competing sides of things, the levels are very different.

"We’ll worry about ourselves rather than anyone else. We have shown we can beat any team in this division and we’ve shown we can be beaten by any team in the division.

"We can’t get carried away, what we will do is continue to do things right on the training ground and the right things in games.

"Hopefully we will then win more games than we lose. If we do that, who knows what will happen?

"They are a level-headed group who compete well, they all want to work.”