Phil Brown has wasted no time in shaking things up at Preston and now his wheeling and dealing could be about to finally reap full reward with victory over neighbours Burnley in Saturday's Lancashire derby at Deepdale.

Faced with a serious shortage of numbers when he replaced Darren Ferguson at the turn of the year, the former Hull supremo has drafted in a handful of new recruits during the January window, plus a couple of loan deals when it reopened for temporary business in February.

Iain Turner, Ian Ashbee, Eddie Johnson and Nathan Ellington are among the new arrivals and the upshot has been a marked improvement in performances with North End standing toe to toe with the two teams widely regarded as the best in the Championship over the past seven days.

Now the Lilywhites can follow up the moral victories of emerging unscathed against QPR and Nottingham Forest by bagging themselves a priceless three points against the Clarets.

In order to appreciate the value in the 3.00 on offer about the home win in this game, you need to look away from the league table because it makes grim reading with Preston rooted to the bottom and trailing fourth-from-bottom Crystal Palace by 10 points.

As such, their chances of getting out of trouble are remote to say the least, but it helps our cause to know this is an occasion worthy of winning in its own right.

A victory over 'the Dingles' means much more to the Deepdale faithful than the three points on offer, so apathy isn't an issue and Preston will be fully aware of their superior record in this fixture down the years.

Given the turnover of managers and players in the modern game, how much weight we should attach to historical results is a matter of debate but North End can only be warmed by a sequence of six wins and a draw in the last seven head-to-heads on their patch.

Burnley have recently been elevated in the fashion stakes since appointing the impressive Eddie Howe as their new manager but we're not convinced performances have matched the hyperbole that surrounds the former Bournemouth boss.

It remains to be seen how much of an impact Monday's televised FA Cup humbling at West Ham will have on their confidence. Either way, the Clarets have a habit of under-performing at short prices on the road.

The recent 1-0 defeat at Doncaster is a classic case in point. With the hosts plagued by injury problems, the visitors were heavily backed but couldn't make light of a congested midfield, gifting Sean O'Driscoll's men a victory that hadn't bargained for when Michael Duff put through his own net to settle the contest midway through the second half.

Throw in earlier setbacks when dropping points by virtue of their inability to create enough clear-cut chances at Scunthorpe and Coventry and you soon realise you have a rather flaky 13/10 jolly on your hands.

Betting Suggestion:
Preston to beat Burnley at 3.00 at Bet365.