Preston North End’s Paul Gallagher has told the club website that he can’t wait for the new season to start.
The Lilywhites finished off their pre-season campaign on Saturday with a 3-0 win over Lancashire rivals Oldham Athletic which means that their next game of the season will be a competitive fixture. They are going to kick off this year’s Sky Bet Championship season with a match against QPR, a team that Preston will hope to beat if they want to be competitive for a play-off spot this season.
And Gallagher can’t wait to get going this season. While the attacking midfielder has enjoyed pre-season, he admitted that is nothing compared to when the season starts and with it being just a few days until the game against QPR he is getting very excited to play some competitive football. And this excitement only gets more pronounced the more he hears people talking about it.
He said: “There is only so much you can do in pre-season; it is all about building up to that first game,”
“Everyone is excited, from the players to the supporters. That first day of the season you want to get off to a good start. You have done all the hard yards in training; the difficult runs you have to do to prepare yourself physically and mentally for a long hard season.”
“Everyone is looking in good shape – we have had a good pre-season and now we are looking forward to the good stuff.”
“Usually it is hot weather, people are in the short sleeves and in the new strips and really looking forward to it. We know what we have to do. We have worked in pre-season on how we want to go and attack the new season and we have to put that into practice in the first game and kick on from there.”
“We know it is going to be difficult, because a lot of clubs have invested and spent a lot of money, and everyone in this division can gain promotion. No one has that right to go up; anyone can beat anyone and that’s why people love this division. We want to try and give ourselves the best opportunity by starting well.”
“It is going to be a tough start. Queens Park Rangers have got a new manager in, who knows the division really well, but if we do what we have been working on and implement our strategy, then we should come away with a good result.”
