Ched Evans is warning his Preston team-mates they have to stop the rot at Norwich City on Saturday.

Early pacesetters North End head to Carrow Road off the back of a third consecutive defeat, at home to QPR, that saw them booed off by the Deepdale crowd.

Ryan Lowe’s squad won six on the spin at the start of the season but much like the Canaries have slipped down the table after two wins from 12.

Now veteran striker Evans, who scored 10 goals in 28 loan appearances for Norwich as a teenager, feels the time has come to halt the slide for eighth-placed Preston.

“From my point of view it is not acceptable. I hold my hand up, it is not acceptable from me. All the lads feel the same. Things have to change because that is not us, that is not Preston,” he said, interviewed by BBC Sport Lancashire. “We look like we are a bit comfortable. At the moment we’re a bit all over the place. It is not good enough.

"We work so hard as a team but we’re not creating, we’re not defending, we’re in a no man’s land and that is not us. It is something we have to address, and quickly. It is out of character. I don’t know how to explain it.

“The second goal (against QPR) comes from people being out of position on the pitch. That is a lack of leadership. The leaders are there, they just need to believe it. The manager can tell us until he is blue in the face, but he can’t keep ramming it down our throats.

"Ultimately it is down to us. He has been ramming it down our throats, he demands more, he expects more. The only people who can change it are out on the pitch.

“We have Norwich next and that is going to be a tough game so no better chance for us to go and show what we can do. You go back to the start of the season when we were doing so well and that is about belief, and believing we are a good team who can be in contention to be in and around the play-offs.”