Phil SumblerIt is a baptism of fire for interim Preston North End head coach Frankie McAvoy. Fresh on the heels of a home game with Norwich City he is now looking forward to a trip to South Wales on Monday afternoon to face a completely out of form Swansea.
The Swans will go into the game on the back of three defeats – something they have never suffered under Steve Cooper and having failed to find the net in any of the three games yet again for the first time under Cooper.
In the opposition dugout will be McAvoy who is interim head coach at Deepdale following the departure of Alex Neil who was sacked at the start of the international break after a run of just one win in nine.
McAvoy has been appointed in his role until the end of the season and started well with a point against runaway league leaders Norwich on Friday so confidence will be high as they head to South Wales to take on Steve Cooper’s side.
McAvoy also talked about the new pressure he was feeling since making the step up as he explained via the official Preston website “It is totally different to being a No.2 compared to being the guy that is at the forefront of it,
“I now understand the pressure that Alex was under and the pressures that everybody else is under and Alex used to say that you didn’t understand the pressure until you were under it too and he was 100 per cent right.
“It is pressure, but you have to deal with situations as they are. You don’t realise how much there is to do, but you have to make it as enjoyable as you can for yourself and that’s the bit that I will try do better going forward.
“The first game was Norwich, which we knew was going to be difficult, but the task that we set as a group was to try and come away with a result, that box is ticked and now we have to focus on Swansea, that is our biggest focus now and trying to tidy up the bits we didn’t do so well against Norwich and try and work better on the bits that we did do well as well, lots to look forward to on Saturday and Sunday, to be ready for Monday.
We have to make sure that our mindset is a positive one, every if we go a goal down, the mindset should be to keep going, keep working, try and create goalscoring opportunities and if we take them, then you never know what will happen in a game.”
The match at the Liberty on Monday kicks off at 3pm.
