Preston North End captain Alan Browne hoping Republic of Ireland duty can help him find form

North End now face two weeks off before returning to action with a trip to Sunderland in the Championship, although five senior players have been called up for international duty.

Browne is one of those as the Republic of Ireland prepare for their final two Nations League games – with teammates Troy Parrott and Robbie Brady also in the squad.

The PNE captain is hoping time away with his country can help him find form.

He said: "For the international boys, we're kind of used to it now. It's a bit of a slog but it's good to go away with your country and represent them, we're all looking forward to it. It gives us a break away from this and hopefully we can come back with a fresh mind and full of confidence.

“It can do some good, at the moment, definitely. I haven't been playing decent all season really, to be honest. It's probably a good thing for me, go away and get some work in.

"Hopefully I'll play some parts and get some minutes with the national team and then come back firing again.”

Browne doesn’t think it’s right for PNE to be overly criticial of themselves, but instead they must find the right critical balance.

He feels that, so far, Preston have wasted a chance to be much higher in the table mainly due to their inability to hit the back fo the net.

He said: “It's about finding the right balance because we haven't been terrible we just can't score. We're doing everything else right. Saturday was a bit different because we conceded some sloppy goals but if you look at the majority of the season, we've dominated pretty much every game that we've played.

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it. We've played really well and created chances where we should score but we just haven't, that's where it's let us down.

"If we can start firing and hitting the back of the net we'll put ourselves in a position to start climbing the table. If we'd have done that in the last 10 games we'd be right up there.”