Town continue their pre-season friendly programme against fellow Championship side Preston North End at Deepdale this evening (KO 7pm).

Having played four games so far, the 6-0 win at Felixstowe & Walton, the 2-1 victory over Maidenhead United at Needham Market and then Saturday’s two games in Austria, which ended in a 2-1 success against Slovakian side Spartak Trnava and a 2-2 draw with Flyeralarm Admira, manager Kieran McKenna says the Blues’ pre-season now moves into its next phase with the matches taking on greater importance.

“That’s how we planned it, these first couple of weeks, the training blocks were more important than the games really. The games were about getting minutes,” he said following the Admira draw in 35 degree heat south of Vienna.

“Preston will be a big step up and back to a more familiar environment to what we’ll face this year in terms of climate, pitch and everything like that. That will be a good test.

“It’s still too early to say that it’s a marker or anything but it will be a good test, a good step up for us. We’ll utilise the whole squad again for the minutes.

“And then we accumulate some match minutes next weekend [with the games at Cambridge and Stevenage] and we follow that with Luton and then two Bundesliga games [at the Innsbruck Cup back in Austria].

“For us, the first three weeks has been a block that we’ve looked at separate and now it’s really a two-week block where we ramp up the match minutes, we ramp up the quality of the opposition and that’s going to be really good for us. And then we can really look forward to the first game [at Sunderland on Sunday 6th August].”

This evening’s match will see the Blues come up against former striker Will Keane, who joined the Lilywhites from Wigan Athletic last week.

Ryan Lowe, who took over at Deepdale in December 2021 after leaving Plymouth, has made a further three signings this summer, midfield pair Mads Frøkjær-Jensen, from Odense in Denmark, and Duane Holmes, from Huddersfield, and on-loan Liverpool full-back Calvin Ramsay.

However, Holmes and Ramsay, who is recovering from injury, won’t be involved this evening.

Last season, Preston, who have been in the Championship for eight seasons now, finished 12th.

Striker George Hirst could make his first appearance since his permanent move from Leicester was confirmed last week.

The 24-year-old didn’t join his teammates in Austria having been suffering with a minor injury earlier in the summer which he sustained at the end of last season. He was due to start training on Monday.

George Edmundson missed Saturday’s games with an ankle problem which isn’t believed to be too concerning, while Wes Burns and Janoi Donacien picked up niggles in the matches and both were subbed as a precaution.

A number of youngsters have been involved in pre-season so far, but Rio Morgan, Leon Ayinde and Harry Barbrook were in the U21s team which won 2-0 at Hertford last night and so seem unlikely to play a part this evening. However, Ryan Carr and Fin Barbrook weren’t involved at Hertingfordbury Park.

Tickets will be available at the Bill Shankly Kop Ticket Office at Deepdale from 5pm for cash and card sales priced at £10 for adults, £5 for concessions and £1 for under-11s accompanied by someone aged over 18.

The game is being shown live by Preston on their iFollow service at a cost of £5.

Photo: Expa.at

PhuketPete added 11:48 - Jul 19 Talking of Preston iFollow… when the heck are the club going to confirm our new match day viewing service?
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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 12:18 - Jul 19 I´m pretty thick when it comes to IT. Is it possible to just pay £5 for this match or do you have to take out a whole subscription. Tried "Register" but didn't dare to go any further in case I was going to pay for a whole season with Preston NE.
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Naylorsrightboot added 12:25 - Jul 19 Still can't see why we are playing a team we face in the league as a friendly. Can't remember us doing this before, seems wrong.
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emergencylime added 13:31 - Jul 19 You can cancel subscription within 14 days, and are only paying for a single match pass, but it looks like you can’t register using the same email you used for Ipswich iFollow, “email already in use”. Yet you can’t sign into PNE iFollow with your ITFC iFollow details. It better be a good game after this FWP palava!
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emergencylime added 13:33 - Jul 19 I should also add that you can’t seem to cancel your ITFC iFollow as the link doesn’t work on the new Town website!!
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trncbluearmy added 14:45 - Jul 19 Having the same problems, don`t want my fiver!
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Steve_ITFC_Sweden added 14:53 - Jul 19 Thanks, emercengylime. Don't really feel like subscribing to PNE and then having to remember to cancel it.
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pg888 added 15:04 - Jul 19 Hardly worth the bother for a meaningless training exercise
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emergencylime added 15:46 - Jul 19 I've registered with an old email address, but I'm more interested in how we can cancel our ITFC accounts. On the App it says to go to your iFollow Site, but that doesn't exist anymore. I'll email the club and report back in the forum.
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trncbluearmy added 15:55 - Jul 19 Have contacted ifollow support and they answered Thank you for contacting iFollow Support. As of the beginning of this season, it is only possible to register your email address with a single club. If you wish to sign up with more than one club you will need to use a different email address for each of them. If your email address is currently registered with a club you are not following and you wish to change this we would need to delete your account in order to free it up. Please confirm whether you would like us to do this. Regards, Alessandro iFollow Support personally can`t be arsed to pursue this further shame just a friendly but would have purchased if straightforward

2

Bluefish11 added 16:20 - Jul 19 Was easy enough to do, but you need to use a different email address and you are only paying for the 1 match @ £5
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emergencylime added 16:51 - Jul 19 Thanks trncbluearmy, I'll give that a lash in a few days, seeing as we won't need an iFollow account anymore.
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maninashed added 17:09 - Jul 19 Tried signing on with two accounts and both were refused as email address already existed. Oh well that's a fiver saved.
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Linkboy13 added 18:05 - Jul 19 No problem with playing a friendly against a team from our league as both teams will be fielding experimental lineups and making changes throughout. Too many people take these preseason kick abouts to seriously. What does bother me we are playing this game and then flying back to Austria for some Micky mouse tournament can't be good preparation for the fast approaching season im sure the players won't be looking forward to all the travelling.

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algarvefan added 18:32 - Jul 19 Linkboy13 it's only Austria not Australia!!!
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mg415 added 18:32 - Jul 19 just tried using different email and paid with my paypal but having took my money it did not except my password so I paid £5 for nothing great nothing works in this country
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algarvefan added 18:37 - Jul 19 I signed on (as following PNE) using a different email and a new password, purchased my ticket and am currently looking at some seats at deepdale, so seems to be working OK. Come on you blues!!!
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SamWhiteUK added 18:53 - Jul 19 The incompetence shown by our fanbase when it comes to iFollow will never cease to amaze me!
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blues1 added 19:15 - Jul 19 Linkboy13. We're not flying back to Austria until the end of next week. And it's only Austria. Quicker to fly there than go to preston by road. And I'm surextge players are more than happy.
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