Preston North End manager says his side must start picking up points and wins after Sheffield United loss

North End have had a mixed start to the season, their excellent start defensively countered by their poor form in front of goal.

PNE are 15th in the Championship but are still only three points off the play-off places. The second tier is that tight at the moment that Sunderland in 5th are only spearated from Middlesbrough in 22nd by five points.

For Lowe, the international break comes at a good time, although he will have to contend with five kep players being absent. Alan Browne, Troy Parrott, Robbie Brady, Ali McCann and Daniel Johnson are all away with their countries.

Lowe said: “It's coming at a good time if I'd have had all the squad together but I've got five of them flying here, there and everywhere.

"We'll discuss it and debrief the Sheffield United game and get on the training pitch to visually show them some stuff of where we need to be a little bit better in the final third.

"I've said to the group that they need to come back from the international break with a smile on their face and go again. We're going to have another 11 games before the next international break which is the World Cup.

"We need to make sure we start picking up wins and picking up points.”

North End’s 11th game of the season is on the horizon as they prepare for the trip to the Stadium of Light.

Lowe will not be looking back too much at what has come before but instead focusing on their future games and picking up more points.

He said: “That's a 10 block game now gone, we'll debrief that and look at what we could have done, what we could have done better and where they points could have come from.

"There is no point dwelling on it now, it's about what we can do in the next 10 games and if we can get more than 12 points. If we can get more than 12 points it will set us back to where we want to get to but unfortunately we've not had a game but when that comes we've got to be ready.”