Preston boss: To finish above Wolves speaks volumes for us

After 45 matches this season they're 11th – with 62 points.

With the budget at Simon Grayson's disposal (only six modest transfer fees have been paid in those two seasons) Preston are one of the success stories of a league that has seen its finances rocket.

Preston can only dream of spending £13million on one player as Wolves did with Helder Costa, yet they're seven points and four places above Paul Lambert's team heading into tomorrow's game.

North End even had an outside bet of an unlikely play-off place, spearheaded by the form of Everton loanee Aiden McGeady, but that petered out some weeks ago.

There's no doubting it's been a successful season – and one that Grayson is proud of.

"The fact we can better our points tally from last season is a massive motivation for us and it is a big achievement, given the size of the teams who came down last season," he said.

"Newcastle, Norwich and Aston Villa are huge teams and to achieve what we have this year has been fantastic and whether we beat the points total or not, I think we have improved as a team.

"We have scored more goals, we have been closer to the play-offs, we have played good football and we are improving all the time.

"To be above teams, like Wolves, and other teams who have spent a lot of money, speaks volumes for our squad.

"Wolves spent £13m on one player last summer, which is a huge amount of money for the Championship and it again shows how well we have done.

"There were lots of teams spending large budgets at the top of the table, but there have also been a lot of other clubs that have also spent a huge amount of money – £13m for a Championship player is pretty much unheard of.

"It showed you what Wolverhampton Wanderers wanted to do this year – trying to get into the play-offs."

Wolves drew 0-0 at Deepdale in Lambert's first game in charge in November.

What has Grayson made of Wolves' season? "They’ve set their stall out with what they’ve wanted to do and I think they’ll be a little bit disappointed with how things have panned out, but we go there try to win the game," he said.

"They’ll be wanting to send their home supporters home in a positive frame of mind like we are with ours, so it will be a tough game.

"They’ve got some very talented individuals, when you look at Dicko and then Weimann and Edwards, who is a goalscoring midfield player.

"They’re quite dogged; Williamson’s come back in and he has got a lot of experience.

"So you look at the squad and there’s some very talented players in it, and that’s why I think they’ll be slightly disappointed with where they are at this moment in time.

“But that’s not for us to worry about; we’ll go there and whoever plays, whatever system we play, we want to go there and put on a good performance.

"We need to be resilient and hard to beat, because we’ve been a little bit too easy over the last few weeks – but also we can’t lose that edge of an attacking threat that we’ve got within the group."