Preston North End head coach ready for clash with 'energetic' Mansfield Town in the Carabao Cup

The Stags beat Bristol Rovers 2-1 in their opening League Two clash, a stoppage-time penalty from Danny Williams delivering the three points.

McAvoy is also aware of a couple of good results they had during pre-season.

“They are a good team, play with a diamond in a 4-4-2 and are very energetic,” said McAvoy.

“Mansfield did well in pre-season, they won 2-1 at Hull and beat Coventry 1-0.

“Nigel Clough is a good, experienced manager. They will pose a difficult challenge and we have to be up for that challenge. We know we didn’t do as well as could have on Saturday and we need to rectify that.”

Clough’s men finished 16th last season and the Field Mill boss has been busy in the transfer market bolstering the squad.

Their weekend matchwinner Williams was a summer recruit from Leyton Orient. The scorer of the first goal, Oli Hawkins, came from Ipswich Town.

Stags boss Clough told iFollow Mansfield: "We’ll make a few changes, not too many, and they’ll be based on knocks and things.

“Then we have a couple of lads who are absolutely champing at the bit to play games, and George Lapslie is one. He’ll be starting.

“I'm not sure (if Preston will be at full strength) after Saturday. It’s difficult to tell, as it was a very surprising result.

“What we do expect is a reaction from them. They’ll want to win a game and get Saturday out of their system.

"I hope we’ve got an even share of the ball tomorrow. I think that’s one of our strengths, our ability on the ball.

“We’ve seen from the games against Championship teams in pre-season, that when we’ve got it, we can cause problems as well.

“We possibly don’t keep it as well as Preston, but I’d expect us to have a decent amount of possession."

PNE and Mansfield met at the first-round stage last season at Deepdale, Tom Barkhuizen, Sean Maguire, Patrick Bauer and Josh Harrop netting in a 4-0 win.

Thanks for reading. If you value what we do and are able to support us, a digital subscription is just £1 per month for the first two months. Try us today by clicking here