Preston North End boss will use lessons learnt from the past if his side finish Championship season strongly as Cardiff City approach

North End have less than a dozen games left of their 22/23 season, with three of them coming over the next seven days.

They are currently five games unbeaten and will be looking to make it six this weekend against Cardiff City at Deepdale but Lowe is wary of getting carried away.

After his arrival in December 2021, the Lilywhites’ form picked up and with rallying from the manager, supporters flocked to back their team as the season ended well. If the same was to happen this time around, we could see Lowe play things a little differently.

But for the time being, his aim is to beat last season’s points tally, which would mean taking 17 points from their remaining games that include Sheffield United, Middlesbrough, Millwall and Blackburn Rovers – four of the top seven in the league.

He said: “It's always nice to finish the season on a high. I think we finished the season on a high last season and then we probably got too high and thought it's going to be easy next season. It's a bit of a mixture isn't it?

"I need to be careful what I say and how I say it but the fact of the matter is it's about points. However you finish or whatever way you finish. I think Preston North End have finished in the 60 point barrier over the last few years so we want to try and do the same.

"We'd love to finish higher but ultimately there are teams in there that are more consistent than us. Ultimately, it is about collecting as many points as we possibly can and see where we finish. We want a good end to the season, we're midway through the season now and we want to finish the next 11 games strongly and win as many as we possibly can.

"But there are other teams standing in your way, we have to make sure we prepare right which we always do and see where it takes us. The target most of the time is to finish the same as what we did last year, we got 64 points so we want to try and beat that. As long as we can keep collecting points we'll see where we finish.”

Cardiff are next up for PNE and they will arrive to Deepdale as one of the form sides in the Championship having won three of their last four games.

Sabri Lamouchi has the Welsh side looking like they can pull away from the drop, sitting one place above but six points clear of the bottom three, but Lowe pays their situation no mind.

He said: “We can't look at what they're fighting, that's their business not ours. We need to do what we do best, which is organise the team and make sure they have the game plan to take to fruition. Cardiff can worry about their situation but ultimately it's about what we do.

"We'll respect Cardiff like we do every team, we'll know that they're going to be turning up to fight for three points because that's what they need and we'll make sure we do our bit.

"It will be all about what Preston North End do on Saturday afternoon. They're in good form but we've been in good form also.”