I’m just up at St Andrews, we’ve had a couple of training days, it’s just a get-together, there has been no game but the manager wanted all the players together again and to see each other again after the summer. It has been a good couple of days.

The manager wanted certain opposition but after the World Cup a lot of the bigger countries didn’t want a game so early, the games that he could have got he didn’t see as being beneficial to us, he thought it would be better to get the lads together and have a training session.

It is going to be tough. We’ve got the two World Cup finalists in our group as well as the Ukraine and a couple of other teams that will give us tough tests. We know what is expected of us but we have picked up some good results against some decent teams since the new manager has taken over. We’ve done ok in the last group so obviously we want to try and qualify for the Euros.

It is always a great occasion to be playing the bigger countries. I remember playing Italy last year, we got a draw against them and we were a bit disappointed with that to be honest, they went on to win the World Cup. On your day if you stick together and believe that you can get the result then nothing is impossible.

Gutted is an understatement, I was really disappointed with the red card, I don’t think I deserved it, I thought it was a booking at the most. The way everyone reacted and with it being away at Norwich, the referee was quite weak throughout the game, I think I was a victim of circumstance but it was myself that put myself in that position so I blame myself a little bit, I’m not totally blameless but I thought that it only warranted a yellow and I am disappointed that it wasn’t rescinded.

I’m not going to blame anyone for it, it goes on in football and it has done for a few years now. Players always react to situations and I think that referees have to be stronger and just look at the challenge rather than all the hoo-haa afterwards, in different circumstances with that challenge I don’t think I’d have got a red card. I just think it all added up and got me sent-off.

I let my team down in that game, not so much in that match because it was over at that stage but I will be missing for the three games at a time when we have got a few injuries. I have to say though that the lads did brilliantly at Wolves, it was a great result and they did well.

The last few years I have been ok but when I was younger I used to get a few suspensions over a season, but that was my fifth sending-off and I think that it has been kept quite quiet, to be honest they have been five travesties!

I watched the game against Wolves, it took us a while to get into the game but once Nuge scored I thought that there was only going to be one winner to be honest. The confidence grew in our team and drained out of theirs at the same time, two fantastic strikes from Nuge and then Simon finished it off at the end.

Mick McCarthy was a big competitor as a player and he’s the same as a manger, we’ve seen that with the games we have had against Sunderland. We probably played them at a good time because he has only been there two or three weeks and I’m sure he will get them going, but it is about what we do and you have to beat what is put in front of you and we got the three points which is what we needed.

With what had gone on over the summer and the first two games not going our way. We should have won against Sheffield Wednesday but we can’t really complain about the Norwich result, we needed to get a win to get the confidence going, we did that and now everybody is looking forward to the weekend and getting more points on the board.

You want to see the big games and you want to see the players who have done well in the World Cup, you want to see the world stars like Shevchenko and Ballack and see how they get on. Even though you are not involved in it it is good to go home, watch Match of the Day on a Saturday and take it all in.

Claude’s injured at the moment but I was speaking to Christian Dailly about Tye and he has said that he has done well in pre-season and might be playing. Hopefully he does because Tye is a good player, a good lad and he deserves his chance. Hopefully he will play for West Ham and get a few games.

After the World Cup tips that I gave you, I said that Michael Owen would be top scorer and Brazil would win so I think my days as a tipster are over.

I think the Play-Off defeat at the end of last season hurt more than ever to be honest. It is bad to go out at any stage, the semi or the final, but the way we played throughout the season and the position that we finished in, plus going into the second-leg with a decent result from the first, we should have at least got to the final. We would have been playing Watford and no disrespect but I thought we were a better team than them but they finished in the higher positions and fair play to them they probably deserved to go up during the season anyway.

If I’m being honest Billy Davies’ departure didn’t surprise me, I had a funny feeling that something might happen during the summer so when all the speculation started it didn’t really come as a surprise. When he eventually left I thought it was inevitable to be honest, but that gave the Club plenty of time to get it sorted and get a new manager in. The staff upheavals during pre-season weren’t very helpful but now we have got the staff in and hopefully we can start the season all together.

The new gaffer has come in and he has been brilliant. He is doing it his own way, the training is a little bit different to when Billy was here and a lot of things are a little bit different but the discipline is still there and he wants us to be an organised team. He’s got his own staff in now which is good for him, we are eventually getting to know each other, obviously the first couple of weeks are a little bit different with new faces around the place and a couple of new players but as pre-season has gone on we have started to understand what the gaffer wants on the pitch and I think you could tell in the performances towards the end of pre-season, we played quite well.

It’s my first pre-season as captain of the club and this year that has brought a little bit of extra responsibility with the new manager coming in. There are little things where Paul might want to know what went on last season in terms of discipline and club fines, we’ve been talking about things like that and trying to get it all set up. I’m a link between the manager and the players so for the tiny details like what to wear for games the gaffer has come and asked me. It’s not so much responsibility but just finding out from the more experienced players.

We’ve brought extra cover in on the left with Danny Pugh’s arrival and I’m happy about that, I played at left-back a lot last season because at one point we only had two full-backs with myself and Tyrone Mears. The previous manager thought that I would be the best one at left-back because I can use my left foot a little bit and that’s why I played there, I ended up playing there for the rest of the season. I’m a right-back first and foremost, I’ve played most of my football at right-back, I feel that I can help the team more at right-back but I’m sure if the occasion comes up for me to play at left-back then I’ll be more than happy to do it but it is good that the manager has brought in extra strength on the left hand side.

The likes of Danny Pugh, Lewis Neal, Simon Whaley and Chris Sedgwick have seen a lot of the ball in pre-season and I think that might come down to the fact that the gaffer was a wide man himself, he was a player that wanted to get on the ball and he wants his wide men to do the same here. They won’t have a better teacher of wing-play than the manager we have got now, he wants us to get plenty of width and plenty of crosses in and plenty of shots. He wants to change us a little bit, the whole team had a great defensive record last season but we didn’t score enough goals, I think he wants to put that right whilst at the same time keeping the defensive qualities that we have. There has been a lot of emphasis in pre-season about attacking play, we’ve seen the wide men, the midfielders, the forwards and even the full-backs getting up, crossing from all areas and taking your chance from shots and crosses.

We’ve benefited from that already, I’m not renowned for my heading but I did score one against Bury last week, I had just give a goal away and I was probably making up for that. I took a run forward, lost my marker, attacked the near post, like a good centre-forward should and I flicked it into the net. My first ever professional goal was a header, back in the day, when I was at Scunthorpe but I’ve only scored one since then in my whole career.

We’ve had some decent pre-season games, especially the Everton and the Man Utd games, it gives you a little taste of the season but nothing can compare to the start of the season and the hurly burly of Championship football, we will get that today against Sheffield Wednesday, they’ll bring a big support, hopefully it will be an exciting game and fingers crossed we can get off on a good foot. We’ve recently been slow starters but we’re looking to change that this season and get off to a flyer.

We already had Adam and Brett out, two quality players, they’ll be looking to get back soon. Unfortunately this season has started with Callum needing an operation and Brian O’Neil will have to rest for a while, we also had the big blow last Saturday with Youl picking up the injury, it’s a nightmare because he has been flying in pre-season and he was superb against United. Youl would have been a big player for us this season but I’m sure he is going to come back stronger.

He’s had a great career at Preston North End so far, he’s done really well 10 years in. It’s probably more than that if you include his schoolboy and YT years but as a professional for 10 years at one club is a great achievement. He has seen the Club rise from the lower league to being on the doorstep of the Premiership and he has been a great player for the Club over the last few years, I think now he is just coming into his peak.

Definitely, there is so much movement in football these days, there are a lot of agents involved and players can see that they can make a good living by moving around. When you get a player as good as McKenna staying loyal to Preston, I’m sure he’s had offers and heard whispers about moves to other clubs, he fully deserves his game tonight against Everton. He’s a great lad, if you speak to any player that has played with McKenna while they have been here they will say that he is one of the top three players, and that’s true in the time I have been here. He’s good technically, he trains really well, he’s fit and he’s a great lad off the pitch as well, he deserves it more than anyone else I think.

If you actually watch him he wins more headers than anyone else on the pitch, he’s a great athlete, he’s got a great spring, he’s a strong lad and since I have been here he has been one of the top players. I remember playing against him when I was at Luton, he couldn’t really live with me then, so I think he was happy to see my on his side. He’s a great player to play with, he’s got a good football brain, he’s always thinking about the game and he knows how to get the best out of certain situations.

I found it quite surprising in my first three of four years here that he didn’t get the accolades that I thought he should have. I think he has been quite underated for a lot of years, it’s only in the last two years that he has got a bit of press attention from outside of Preston and that people actually realise what a good player he is. All the players and staff that have been here over the years know what he can do but I think he has been underrated by football people away from the Club. If you actually ask people within the game they know what he can do and I’m sure there would be a lot of clubs interested in him if he ever became available. Hopefully we can keep him here at Preston because he is a top player.

He has got a great strike on him, he knows where the goal is and he has got great technique. The thing with Paul is that he wants to help the team so much that he does a lot of defending and sometimes because he is so unselfish and he helps the team he probably doesn’t get into those goalscoring positions like other people do. That’s just down to the type of character that he is, he helps the team and he puts the team first, if he became a bit more selfish and didn’t defend so much he could probably get 10 goals a season every year. He always thinks about the team first and that is what makes him the player that he is.

When David Moyes took over as manager I think it was an upturn in a lot of players’ careers, Paul was one of those players and so was I. David Moyes did really well for the Club when he was here and he did really well for a lot of the players, it’s great to see him bring his team back for this night, for Paul. If you ask Moyesy he will tell you what a great player Paul is as well, it’s going to be a special night for ‘Kenna’ and one that he deserves.

You never know, I’ve done something like seven years now and I’ve got another year on my contract and that would be a great thing to do. But three years is a long time in football, there’s probably only three or four players left from three years ago here, so much can change. It’s a long way away, it would be great for me to get that far but I am not thinking that far ahead to be honest.

I’ve been out for a few weeks injured and I am looking forward to getting back playing, we have got some tough games coming up with a bit of travelling but we are used to it at Preston because we do have quite a few long journeys from up here.

The mood in the dressing room is really good because we have played quite well, even though we have been beat. Obviously we could have prevented a couple of the goals but our overall play has been quite good, the atmosphere is good and the confidence is still up there, we know we are a decent team and we know we can beat most sides when we play well.

There’s a couple of little things we could have done a little bit better at either end of the pitch but overall the possession we had and the way we played and the chances we created were decent so if we can keep that up we will win more than we lose.

I didn’t think they were as good as I thought they would be. They are doing really well and they are at the top of the league because they deserve to be there but I think we played really, especially in the second half, I think we bossed the game and they struggled a little bit and were hanging on towards the end. But they are a decent team, you can’t say that if they are that far ahead that they don’t deserve to be because they have won a lot of games.

I probably wouldn’t expect a similar result scorewise, I know that we can win the game but 4-0 would be a big ask because Ipswich are a decent side. We played them at the start of the season when they weren’t on their best form and we caught them at a good time but they are a decent side and a big club. I think it will be a hard game, a real tough game but I am sure we can get the three points.

It seems to be all defenders, we have got suspensions in the same part of the team, sometimes when you get them spread out of the team you can cover but we do seem to be short of defenders this weekend so it is going to be a tough game and we are going to have to adapt and somebody is going to have to play out of position on Saturday but I don’t see that being a problem because we have got enough good players in this squad to cover.

It’s a little bit of both really, he’s a decent player, he can really take people on on his day and he can score a lot of goals and I was looking forward to him playing against Claude Davis, his big friend, it would have been a good old battle and it would have been interesting to see. For us we would rather him not play because he is a decent player, even though we are not frightened of him or anything, he is one of their better players so it is better for us that he is not playing.

I wouldn’t see that happening to be fair, I’ve played all over the park this season but I don’t think centre-half would be one of them options. If I was asked to do it I would do it but I don’t think the gaffer would be looking along them lines.

The second half of last season we did really well and it did seem to happen from halfway through but this season we have started our run a little bit earlier and we are in a lot better position this year than we were last year and I think the squad is a lot stronger. The team is quite similar in strength but the squad size is a lot deeper and the quality throughout is better, we have probably got 18 or 19 players playing for the positions.

A couple of us had played in the last one against Bolton but for most of the lads it was a new experience and I think that you do learn from your experiences. As a footballer the more big games you play the better you handle the next one, I think if we get there this year what we went through last year will stand us in good stead.

The teams just outside the Play-Offs are probably looking at our position and trying to take it off us. We are in sixth place at the minute and there are a couple of teams, Wolves are coming strong, Cardiff are hanging in there and they could pick up some good results. Out of the teams below us I could see Wolves maybe going on a good run towards the end and getting there but we are not really looking at what other teams are doing, we know what we need to do, we know how many points we need to get to get into the Play-Offs.

We know roughly what it takes to get into the Play-Offs, what sort of point mark it is and we just want to get to that mark as soon as we can, we don’t want to leave it over the next 12 games, we want to get it as soon as we can, we are going out for wins every week.

The one thing I have learnt from Play-Off experience is that it doesn’t matter who you play, I think I’ve finished third, fourth, fifth and sixth in the Play-Offs and been beaten every year. Anyone can beat anyone, it’s like a Cup competition once you get there, we don’t fear anyone and whoever you get you need to beat them so there’s no worries on that front.

The target after what we did last season was to get to the Play-Offs, we didn’t start off too well this season but the target was still to get in there and now that we are in there we want to stay in there. If we did drop out of it and finished seventh or below it would be a massive disappointment for the whole team.

Wigan and West Ham have shown that if you have got a positive attitude towards it then you can achieve what you want. They have gone up there and they haven’t shown any fear and I think that is the major thing, teams have gone up with good players before and maybe not attacked it as much as they should have and they have come back down. Wigan and West Ham have both been positive teams and really gone for it and they have won some games which will keep them in the Premier League next year by a good margin. If we achieve the goal of getting in the Premier League you have obviously got to add a bit of quality to your squad but we hope we could do the same as them two clubs.