Sean St Ledger has vowed to come back for the pre-season in peak condition.

The 23-year-old, who featured in 40 first team fixtures for the Lilywhites last season, was recently crowned Player of the Year but the former Peterborough man knows that his title will not earn him automatic first team selection for the 2008/09 campaign.

With Manager Alan Irvine looking for strength in depth in all of the key areas, Ledge is under no illusions that he will have to return from his summer break firing on all cylinders if he is to keep his position in the heart of the defence.

He said: "I'm going to go on holiday in a couple of weeks and chill out, then I'm going to make sure I come back as fit as I can be because the Gaffer has already said that he is looking to bring in another centre-half.

"That will mean more competition for me and obviously Trots has played the last few games and has done really well. Everybody knows what a good player Youl is and hopefully Chiller will be fit by Christmas time, so there will be plenty of defenders fighting it out for the two spots.

"It is a balance at this time of the year but I suppose from the time that you finish until June you can let yourself go a little bit. When that time comes, you can start slowly and make sure that when you are back in pre-season training that you kick-on. It is important to relax yourself in these few weeks because we all know that when July comes around it will be a really hard time.

"Obviously it's always nice to have time off but boredom does set it - I'm bored already so I've been hitting the gym quite a bit."

The Championship looks set to be as tough as ever next season following the relegation of Reading, Birmingham City and Derby County from the Premiership. Couple that with the fact that Swansea City and Nottingham Forest have already cemented their promotion from League One whilst Leeds, Carlisle, Doncaster or Southend could be set to join them through the Play-Off backdoor.

St Ledger expects the bar to be raised in the second tier of English football but believes that North End boast a squad that is more than capable of launching a promotion push.

He added: "This year was all about staying up but everybody is massively excited about next year. We have beaten some of the best teams in this league so it shows what we can achieve ,but again there are three good teams who have come down.

"The last time Reading were in this division they stormed the league, Birmingham are another massive club and I'm sure there will be changes at Derby.

"Like I say, we've got a squad that is capable of going up and we've just got to prove that by getting the consistency that we haven't had in the time that I have been here. We've always done well then had a period where we have gone off the boil.

"A club like Preston North End should not be finishing in that sort of position but it's down to the players to put that right next year and prove to everybody that we have got a good squad, a good manager and good staff."