'Mini Man City' - Everything Ryan Lowe said on Leicester City test including '£100m' jest

Preston North End manager Ryan Lowe felt his visit to watch Leicester City live this week was certainly worthwhile.

The Foxes stormed to a 5-0 win over fellow promotion-chasers, Southampton, at home. Abdul Fatawu scored a hat-trick, while Wilfred Ndidi and Jamie Vardy netted. Lowe was in attendance on Tuesday night, alongside good friend and Stoke City boss, Steven Schumacher. On Monday evening, PNE host Leicester - who could need a win to seal promotion to the Premier League.

“Yeah, I was jogging my memory all the way home!” said Lowe, when asked if he picked anything up from the match. “They are a good team. Me and the coaching staff obviously watch all their stuff, but sometimes I just like to go and get my eyes on them. There were some things on and off the ball, which I’ve looked at and hopefully we can capitalise on one or two of those things. It was (similar to the meeting in October). Different personnel; I think they’ve only got £100m on the bench instead of £70m! But no, they are well coached and quality, Premier League players.

“That game the other day, against Southampton, is a Premier League fixture. They just happen to both be in the Championship, for the time being. I thought Southampton had some really good spells and both teams were excellent, although it was five-nil. Leicester just blew them away in the end and without being disrespectful, they should be where they are. Enzo (Maresca) has done fantastic in his first job, coaching them the way he has done - a mini Man City, if you like, the way they play. It is brave, but they’ve got some quality players to do that.”

Leicester could already be up by the time they arrive in Lancashire, should Leeds United lose away to Queens Park Rangers on Friday night. It’s been a four-horse promotion race all season, with the Foxes faltering in recent months and offering hope to Leeds, Ipswich Town and Southampton. But, Leicester are within touching distance of the prize and for PNE, Lowe says the motivation has to be to gatecrash the party.

“We all want parties (for us) on our pitch and one day, hopefully that is the case,” he said. “We cannot compete with Leicester City... no-one can. We want to avoid anyone having a party on our pitch, of course. So we have got to be at the races, do the right things, do the basics right and work hard. They are challenging to win the league and get promoted. But, we’ve got a bit of pride and passion to play for as well. We’ve got to play for our football club and our supporters. What will be will be, with them - we cannot control that.”

Lowe added: “It’s probably the toughest Championship I’ve known for a long, long while. You look at the teams - one of them isn’t going to get promoted. Ipswich are a bit different, because they’ve come up from League One. But, a team who’ve got a budget of, probably £80/90million are potentially going to stay in the Championship. If you do the maths on that, the comparisons are way apart from them and teams like us. So yeah, it’s been a tough challenge so far.”