Preston North End in Numbers: Saturday date with Wednesday

Tom Barkhuizen made his 100th league appearance for North End

Sheffield Wednesday were actually known as the Wednesday Football Club until 1929 – they were originally formed to play in a midweek league.

Today will be the Owls’ 51st visit to Deepdale in the league and they have returned with only nine wins to their name.

On 14 occasions they have managed to earn a point, including last season when they came from 3-1 down to earn a share of the points

PNE had gone 2-0 in front at half-time thanks to goals from Jayden Stockley and a Tom Lees own goal.

Barry Bannan pulled a goal back for the visitors shortly after the interval, but the home re-established their two-goal cushion thanks to Alan Brown’s  62nd-minute strike.

At that stage, North End were looking good to register their 28th victory at home over Wednesday until Fernando Forestieri and Atdhe Nuhui squared the match up in the final 14 minutes. Over the course of those games, PNE have scored 92 to Wednesday’s 50 – so not a huge history of goals.

Interestingly, North End have only lost one of the last 21 league fixtures between the two sides at Deepdale, that by 2-0 during the 2010/11 campaign. Otherwise, PNE have secured 10 wins and the other 10 have been draws.

Both Paul Simpson and Alex Neil had Wednesday as the opponents for their first games in charge – and both were at Deepdale.

Simpson oversaw a goalless in 2006 and Neil’s side won 1-0 two years ago thanks to a Daniel Johnson penalty.

PNE’s biggest home win over the Owls is by 6-0 and this was achieved in successive seasons – the 1953/54 and 1954/55 campaigns.

North End’s 3-1 victory in midweek was the 31st home win for the club over Stoke City. The other 18 fixtures have resulted in nine draws and nine defeats. It was the seventh win in the last nine home league games against the Potters , with one draw and one defeat.

The match was Tom Barkhuizen’s 100th Football League appearance for PNE – he has 20 goals to his name.

Billy Bodin scored only his second goal for PNE in his 23rd appearance, having missed the whole of last season through an ACL injury.