'Let's have a go' - Preston North End boss welcomes final day clash with Southampton
It’s the final day of the Championship season with all games kicking off at 12:30
Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom welcomes a final day encounter against promotion chasing Southampton.
Tonda Eckert’s side looked as though they might be gunning for the last automatic spot, on the final day at Deepdale. However, a midweek draw with Ipswich Town saw them fall out of that race. Saints now know it will be the play-offs but they have an opportunity to finish third or fourth, with victory in Lancashire. PNE’s boss is determined to build on last weekend’s entertaining victory at Sheffield United, though, and go into the summer positively.
“I think that's a good game for us,” said Heckingbottom. “Just as Sheffield United was a good game last week... going away, big stadium, big club. It was good for me personally - you enjoy going back to your old club. Then this one's a good one for me and the players as well, our fans, to finish on I think. The atmosphere should be good.
“Testing ourselves against one of the best squads in the league, again. So yeah, let's have a go. I think there's only us, Millwall and Boro not beaten by one of the relegated teams. That’s another thing for us and Southampton won't underestimate us, I know that. But, they'll be coming here in form, with the confidence they should (given how) they've been performing.”
‘Response has been good’
Heckingbottom added: “We want another strong performance. We had a bad spell in terms of results back end of January, February. There were some good performances in there but when you don't get the wins, you drop off. But the response has been good; I criticise the players when I feel we've let ourselves down.
“But I'm also realistic to know where we're at, and I think that's helped the players understand what we need to do to give ourselves the best chance of winning and performing well. Some days we play our way, we give our best and we're not good enough, fine. But we certainly got back to being a lot more fearless and just having a go.
“In the last few games where we've been winning as well, I feel like we should’ve had more wins. That was the difference between the start of the season. We were winning when we were playing well and were also nicking a few of those narrow games. We've not been able to do that, but the response the last ten games or so has been really good from the players.”