The Championship season is just hours away from kicking off, and Preston fans will be hoping for a better campaign.
North End stayed up comfortably last season, but there were many lows along the way – including the sacking of Alex Neil after a dismal run of form.
After a disappointing 2020/21 season, there are plenty of reasons why fans can be hopeful ahead of the new one.
Fans are back at Deepdale
After a long, long, long wait, fans are finally coming back to Deepdale.
Preston haven’t played a home game in front of fans since the 3-1 defeat to Queens Park Rangers way back on March 7th, 2020.
That’s almost 520 days without a home game in front of fans, and Saturday’s game with Hull City will hopefully be the start of a season without interruptions.
After some uncharacteristically poor home results last season, let’s hope the return of fans can really spur the players on this term.
The young crop are exciting
Preston’s youth setup hasn’t always produced players for the first team, but it’s hard not to be excited about this crop of youngsters.
17-year-old midfielder Lewis Leigh looks very exciting, as do right back Josh Seary and playmaker Noah Mawene – both handed professional deals ahead of turning 18.
Jack Baxter, Adam O’Reilly, Jacob Holland-Wilkinson, Joe Rodwell-Grant, Aaron Bennett, Ethan Walker – the list goes on.
Preston have a lot of exciting players coming through the ranks, and Frankie McAvoy may be the man to bring them through at Deepdale.
McAvoy’s results last season
There are many managers in the Football League who are pretty unknown quantities, but few quite to the level of McAvoy.
The Scot has been around the game for some time now, but was mostly a coach or assistant manager and never really harboured ambitions of being a boss – by his own admission.
This is McAvoy’s first stint as a manager, and whilst nobody really knows what to expect, the results from his time in temporary charge last season were encouraging.
In eight games in charge, McAvoy won five, drew two and lost one.
You can maybe say that other teams were on the beach, but Preston were solid and got the ball into the box a little quicker than under Neil.
Keeping that kind of form going will be tough, but McAvoy has got the best out of these players before in a short period and now needs to do it over the course of a season.