Preston v Rovers Dec 29th 3 pm

Preston North End v Doncaster Rovers Deepdale Dec 29th 2012.

Rovers, who won at Oldham with a last minute goal from Dave Syers, go into this game with an away record, according to manager Dean Saunders, of 12 games played, 10 wins, 1 loss and 2 draws. " Now you can see why I am in footall management and not an accountant", said Dean.

Anyway, we have the best away record in the English Leagues at the moment, and will certainly be looking to add to that tomorrow. The actual record is 10 wins, 1 loss and 1 draw for 31 points out of our 43 so far.

Dean has released Michael Woods and has decided not to extend Sammy Clingan's contract, saying that he (Dean) was looking to spend the monies available to him in different ways. The good news is that Iain Hume has had his loan extended to the end of the season. This means he will not be available to play aginst Preston so there will be one definite change from the Boxing Day team.

I cannot do these notes without mentioning the harsh and controversial sacking of Sean O'Driscoll from Nottingham Forest, after they beat Leeds
4-2 on Boxing Day, and were 1 point off the play off places. Whatever your views of SoD, it is not nice to get such news, especially as he appeared to have pulled the team around, although they were still inconsistent.

Forest have appointed Alex McLeish as SoD's successor, which shows that irrespective of the result on Wednesday, they intended to fire SoD all along. Let's hope for their sake the owners have made the right decision, but only time will tell. Many Rovers fans will no doubt be praying for McLeish to fail.

Thankfully there were no new injuries reported after the Oldham game, so apart from Humey, Dean should have a full squad from which to choose, including Martin Woods who may come into the reckoning.

Preston, who beat us 3-1 at the Keepmoat earlier in the season,drew 0-0 with Bury at Deepdale on Boxing Day. Manager Graham Westley has challenged his players to stand up and be counted. " They are not winning games they should win, and being conrtent with draws" said Westley.

Preston have Shane Candsell-Sherriff back from suspension and available to add to the team against Bury. However, Lee Holmes, Stuart Beavon and Nicky Wroe appear to have joined long term casualties Scott Laird and Keith Keane on the sidelines.

Rovers again took an early 4th minute lead at Oldham, with a header from Rob Jones from a ball which rebounded off the post, and, as in the FA Cup tie at Boundary Park, they let Oldham back into the game, equalising at 1-1. Good goalkeeping from Gary Woods and good defense kept the score at
1-1 until Syers popped up in added time to head home the winner. We now have 43 points and stay in fourth place, handily placed for the second half of the season.

This is the 32nd meeting between the two teams and Preston lead the head to head 15 to 9 with 7 draws. The last game was at the Keepmoat earlier in the season, with the last game at Deepdale being the season opener in 2010/11 season in the Championship when Rovers came away with a 2-0 win. A repeat of that score would be most welcome.

Chris Brown will be looking to get one over his former bosses when he returns to Deepdale for the first time since his move to Rovers 18 months ago. Chris joined Preston from Sunderland for 325,000 pounds and made over 1200 appearances for the Lilywhites. Chris said, " It will be nice to go back there, but they have a new manager and completely different team".
" When I went there I did really well and we got to the play offs", Chris added.
Chris Beardsley will also be looking to get one over the Rovers for whom he played a few years ago.

Match officials: Referee will be Steven Rushton from Staffordshire who has not had either side in the League so far this season. He did referee the League Cup game at the Keepmoat when Rovers beat Hull City. In 19 games so far this season he has booked 52 players and sent off 8. Both teams will need to be on their best behaviour to avoid further entries in his little black book.

Joe Hull and Geoffrey Liddle will be the assistants and Matthew Bristow the fourth official.

Preston v Bury. Stuckmann, Mousinho,Wright, Foster,Buchanan, Welsh, Byrom, Hayhurst, King and Beardsley. Subs, Monakana, Trundle Amoo, Huntington, Kane, Elding and Simonsen.

Rovers v Oldham. Woods, Quinn, Jones, McCombe, Spurr, Cotterill, Harper, Keegan, Bennett, Paynter and Hume. Subs, Syers, Martis, Blake, Maxted, Griffin, Husband and Brown.

Look for Brown to come in for Hume and for Martin Woods to fit into the midfield if fully fit.