Preston North End boss Alex Neil ponders whether to stick or twist against Nottingham Forest

North End are targeting back-to-back wins for the first time since February following the midweek 3-1 victory over Sheffield Wednesday.

A change of formation worked well at Hillsborough, Neil moving away from his usual 4-2-3-1 to play three at the back in a 3-5-2.

The Scot will have to decide whether that is worth doing again, so too which players he fits into the system.

His substitutes made such a big impact, Scott Sinclair, Jayden Stockley and Brad Potts all scoring after coming off the bench.

Daniel Johnson and Paul Gallagher both made their comebacks as substitutes after recent injuries, Neil not having wanted to throw them in from the start.

Neil said: “I think there is a strong argument to stick with what we did on Wednesday.

“Equally we have to look at the opposition and judge what is the best opportunity for us to win the game.

“It might be that the system is the best one for this game and also the best system because we’ve had a good performance with it.

“If that is the case, things become straightforward.

“The lads got the job done at Sheffield Wednesday and now they have to be ready for the next one.

“There is no point having that performance and good result and then coming up short in the next one.

“The points are massive at this stage of the season so it was relief more than anything that we won.

“Had we not won the other night we would have made it extremely difficult for ourselves in terms of making the play-offs.”

To start with on Wednesday night, Neil went with Sean Maguire and Tom Barkhuizen up front.

They caused plenty of problems to the Sheffield Wednesday defence with their pace but the goals only arrived later on when North End went more direct.

Said Neil: “Again I’ve got some tough choices.

“The substitutes made a big impact with their goals and there were some great contributions.

“I thought the finishes from Jayden Stockley and Brad Potts were great ones.

“What you saw from them with their goals, I see that a lot in training.

“If you look at Jayden he is a big lad and people think about what he does in the air.

“But he’s very technical with the ball about his feet, he’s a good player.

“You always want your subs to have an impact.

“We’d been a but unlucky that our subs hadn’t scored in other games.”