Preston best in division — Hill

IF Rochdale are to reach the second round of the Capital One Cup they will have to beat the side Keith Hill rates as the best in League One.

Preston North End are the visitors to Spotland tonight and Hill sees similarities between them and last season’s runaway champions, Wolves.

“Preston are, for me, the stand-out favourites to be promoted from League One,” said Hill. “It was Wolves last season, Preston this season. I think they are really geared up for automatic promotion.”

Nevertheless, Hill is confident he can come up with a plan to beat Simon Grayson’s team.

“They are all tough games and what we can’t do is build up negative pressure because when you look at the division we cannot compete financially with any team, really,” said Hill.

“But we can compete in other ways, like we did on Saturday against Peterborough.

“We can compete on the training ground and on the park and we will have another plan in place for Preston and hopefully we can execute it.”

Hill is expected to name an unchanged side for the cup clash.