Sean St. Ledger has been at his typical best this season with his performances making the 23-year-old a serious contender to scoop the Player of the Year award.

The popular defender spoke to PNE.Com ahead of what looks set to be another humdinger of a clash against Kevin Blackwell's Sheffield United this Saturday afternoon...

Ledge, there are six massive games remaining in the season and next up on Saturday at Deepdale are the Blades.
Obviously all the games in the Championship are difficult and this one is too. Everyone predicted that Sheffield United might have been going straight back up with the squad they have got and personally I would have thought that they would have done better.

Indeed, they were one of a number of teams tipped for promotion last August and their indifferent form resulted in a change of manager. However since Kevin Blackwell took over their results look to have picked up.
Usually when a new manager comes in it gives everybody a little lift. I'm not too sure what he has added there but they have good bunch of players and their new manager must be getting something extra out of them.

Yourself and the other defenders will have your work cut out on Saturday against a forward line that contains a number of quality players.
They have got very good strikers. James Beattie has been linked with Premiership teams again and Billy Sharp has hit a little bit of form having banged a couple of goals in his last two games.

It's going to be a tough game defensively but we look forward to it. We are on a good run ourselves and we don't want to worry about them too much, we're trying to concentrate on keeping out good run going.



We have hit a rich vein of form but how important is it that we don't take our foot off the gas?
For us it is all about staying up. When the manager first came in that was obviously his target and if we do get the win on Saturday then hopefully we will be safe.

Then our next target is just to try and finish as high as we can and keep this run going because it breeds confidence in the team and it brings all the fans back.

If we beat Sheffield United on Saturday then we go level on points with them and that's a good achievement from where we were in January. Hopefully if we do win, then we will have that extra breathing space from the bottom because we are still only six points from the relegation zone.

That's only two games and anything can happen so it's not over yet and we are still fighting for our lives. We are on a good run but it is important people don't get carried away.

Could you have envisaged us going on a run like this a month ago?
Probably not to be fair. We had really hard games on that run against Leicester and Charlton and although it is an unbeaten run, we have won games too which is massive.

I probably feel that we can beat anybody at the moment, especially at home and there was a time earlier in the season when we weren't too strong.

If we can continue winning our home games and get points from our away trips then we are going to do well. If we can stay up this year then we have to look to continue the run into next season.



When the Manager arrived he spoke about the need for strength in depth and that has proved the case following the injury to Liam. Since you've resumed your partnership with Youl, you must be absolutely delighted with your form?
Yeah, we've done alright together. It's been a funny old season for me really, I've been in and out with injuries, suspensions or simply because other players have benn playing well.

I'm just enjoying playing at the moment, obviously it's sad to see Chiller pick up the injury because you never wish that on anybody, but he'll come back stronger and fitter.

I'm enjoying playing back at centre-half because it's where I want to play and I'm obviously enjoying the good form that the team are in. The important thing is that the team are winning and if everyone can stay strong at the back and not concede many goals then I'm confident we can continue to win games.

You mentioned then that you personally are enjoying the good form but that applies to everyone because there's a real buzz around the place at the moment.
That's the thing. In January we were the lowest of the low - it was hard - but we've dragged ourselves out of it and now it's enjoyable. It's a lot easier to express yourself when you are winning games.

In the fixture at Bramall Lane you were the victim of a harsh penalty decision which ultimately denied us three points. What are your recollections of that game?
It was probably bad refereeing but then again, there might have been another penalty in the last minute. I might have been a bit unlucky but sometimes you get decisions and other times you don't.

We were comfortable for the whole game up until the penalty and that completely changed the game. They were direct in their tactics but they have a new manager now so we are not too sure what to expect so we'll see what happens.

And finally, in your Christmas video message you spoke about hoping that 2008 is a better year than the last one. So far that has proven to be the case.
It has and it's probably been the time that the Gaffer's work has paid off. It was hard for him at the start to come in and change things so drastically because there were so many games but we've been out on the training pitch, we've done defensive work and personally I have learnt loads of things.

We are a lot more organised, we do work with the video so his and the rest of the staff's work has really kicked in since January.

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