Preston North End boss will not be flogging his players over the international break despite lack of wins

There will be two weeks between North End’s last game, their 2-0 Championship defeat to Sheffield United on Saturday, and their next, away at Sunderland on October 1.

There will however be some absentees with Alan Browne, Robbie Brady, Troy Parrott, Ali McCann and Daniel Johnson all called up by the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Jamaica respectively.

As North End still search for a way to kickstart their season, Lowe will not be putting extra work into his charges.

He said: "We'll probably show them stuff rather than doing it because there are a lot of lads, five of them, going on internationals.

"There are a couple of them who will be getting injections to make sure that they can see it through to the next internationals because of some of the niggles that they've had.

"There won't be many on the grass but there will be a time to reflect over the next week or 10 days before we get the lads back. We can plan for the Sunderland which is going to be another important game for us. We've got to keep doing the right things and keep believing.

"Everything we do on the training pitch is geared up to a Saturday afternoon or a Tuesday evening. All we can do now is forget about the game as quickly as we possibly can, we'll debrief it, and then we'll move on to how we're going to get a result against Sunderland.”

PNE have had a hectic start to the season, playing 10 league games and two cup games in under two months.

With that, Lowe feels his players will welcome the respite.

He said: “They might well be ready for it, it's why we freshened it up against Sheffield United. You only have to look at the players who have played all the minutes, Liam Lindsay hasn't missed a minute, towards the back end he's out on his feet.

"We make the changes to freshen things up, not because anyone has been playing bad at all. People can be in better form but it's more that if we've got fresh legs, we’ll use them.”