Preston North End boss Alan Irvine could see his side secure their Championship future at Plymouth Argyle this weekend. If the Lilywhites take all three points at Paul Sturrock's Home Park then it will be mathematically impossible for PNE to be relegated - an amazing feat for a side that was rooted to the bottom of the table at the turn of the year.

But Irvine is under no illusions as to the difficulty of the task his side face. Sturrock, a former team-mate of Irvine's at Dundee United, will be willing his side on to victory, knowing that a win could keep alive Argyle's very slender hopes of escaping the Championship via the Play-Offs.

Alan Irvine spoke to pne.com ahead of what is sure to be a critical weekend of Championship football.

Gaffer a win this weekend would mathematically see us safe.
It's a big three points, there's no doubt about that, three points we desperately want to get. I've said several times now that we don't want the season to peter out, the players don't want that and the staff don't want it and of course the fans don't want it either. It's vitally important that we get a good performance and a good result.

I have to say that it's a difficult place to go, Plymouth are a good team, they are still hoping that they can get in the Play-Offs, there's still a possibility and if they don't win against us then that's their chance of the Play-Offs gone. We have shown that we are capable of beating anybody, home or away, and I feel that we have been playing some really good football.

Strangely enough we have actually played with a great deal of control in the last two games, against Queens Park Rangers and Barnsley and only come out with one point and that's very frustrating. I think that we are all hoping to finish the season on a high, looking like a good team and being the form team for 2008.

Paul Sturrock is a manager you played with at Dundee United.
Yes, we played together at Dundee United, he was a really good player, a terrific footballer, a good striker with good movement, a nice finisher, he was a good lad as well. He's had a very good managerial career both in Scotland and in England, he's done great jobs wherever he has been.



You went to see Plymouth at Sheffield Wednesday on Monday night, have you seen anything that might trouble us and anything that you can exploit?
Yes, I think you always do, you are always looking for that. There are very few teams you look at and not see how you can hurt them but likewise there are very few teams you see that have no threats. They've got threats, there's no doubt about it, they've had a really good season, they're in a good position, they've been competing up at the top end of the league all season and also it is a very difficult place to go.

We know that we are going to have to play very well to get a result at Plymouth, we'll have to do well when they've got the ball and do well when we have got it ourselves.

Does their geographical location make it a difficult place to go mentally, as well as the fact that they are playing well?
I think it does, the only thing is that nowadays with so many teams being able to fly to different places and us being able to prepare in that way then it takes a little bit of that away. In the past there might have been a seven or eight hour drive down there and that is very sapping. Fortunately we are able to fly there and that should take an awful lot of the strain out of getting to Plymouth.

Flying there but you're coming back by road and you and the lads won't want to make that long trip back after a defeat?
It's a long enough journey without you coming back and feeling miserable. We've had experiences of both, we've come back a long way from places with great results and we have travelled a long way back with disappointing results, the journey goes a lot quicker and is a lot more pleasant when you have had a great result.

Andy Lonergan looks set to make his 100th appearance for the Lilywhites. He's really showing some fantastic form after coming through a difficult period earlier on the season, he's been a big part of this side in the last three months.
First of all anyone who gets 100 games deserves a big pat on the back. Andy would have had them a lot earlier if he hadn't had the injuries but looking at it from his point of view he's a goalkeeper and he can get many more hundreds of games under his belt before he retires. It's great for him to have reached that landmark, let's hope that he doesn't have the problems that he has had from injury and that he has the rest of his career injury-free in which case he will amass a huge total of games I am quite sure.

As far as his form's concerned he has been outstanding since January, he had a really dodgy spell before Christmas and made some costly mistakes and at the time people were disappointed in how he was playing but since then he has been absolutely terrific. I remember saying at the shareholders evening that I felt that Andy could handle those mistakes psychologically and that he would come back as a much better and a much stronger goalkeeper and I think he has done that. He deserves an enormous amount of credit for recovering from those set-backs because they were very costly and everyone was fully aware of them, his form since then has been outstanding.



You were missing Chris Brown last week and you were hoping to have him back this week, has he been able to train so far?
Yes, he's trained. We actually didn't train Monday or Tuesday, we trained Wednesday, Thursday and Friday prior to the game and Browny has been training. As long as he doesn't have any set-backs then he will train at the weekend.

Have you managed to work on those aspects in the final third of the field that you spoke about in the aftermath of last weekend's defeat?
Yes, we've got a bit more done on the creative side which is really pleasing. You need big areas to work on attacking shape and we have been able to do that and I'm absolutely delighted about that. It doesn't all drop into place immediately, everybody knows that it took a while before the defensive side of things fell into place, we lost a lot of games prior to Christmas but since then we have actually done very well. I hope that the lads will pick up all the other work that we are doing as quickly as possible but we can't expect instant success.

If you do win on Saturday will you take some time on that long journey back to reflect on what you have achieved since you arrived at Deepdale?
Perhaps. To be honest I have been looking back anyway because many many people have already told me that we are safe and may people have said what a great job we have done in order to get ourselves into this position. Once we know for sure then I'm sure that that will be a significant moment, how exactly I will react to that I don't know yet but it's certainly something I am hoping comes very soon and that we really can look to next season without any doubts whatsoever.

You might have a few seconds to think about and then get inspired to think about what's to come?
Interestingly I have already been doing that. Since we got to a position where it looked like we were probably going to be safe I have suddenly started noticing things that I hadn't noticed before and all of a sudden I am keen to get other areas sorted out. Up until the last couple of games I was probably only ever thinking about our games and our results.

Can North End secure their Championship safety this weekend? Listen to live and uninterupted commentary of the game on Whites World from 2.30pm this Saturday.