Tom Bayliss scored his sixth goal of the season on Tuesday night with a late winner for Shrewsbury Town in a 1-0 win away to MK Dons.
After a disappointing three year spell at Preston North End, Bayliss seems to have settled in quickly for Steve Cotterill’s side, playing in 32 games so far this season. He has scored five goals in League One with another in the FA Cup as well as five assists in all competitions.
Preston North End’s current midfielders don’t have stats anywhere near that at the moment, with Ryan Ledson and Alan Browne only managing to score their first league goals of the season last weekend at Birmingham City. We are lacking a creative midfielder capable of providing enough goal contributions to help support the attackers.
Bayliss had scored nine goals in 73 games for Coventry City before arriving at Preston in the summer of 2019 for a fee believed to be in the region of £1.2 million. The ball carrying midfielder came to Deepdale with a high reputation, and at just 20-years-old at the time the signing was seen as somewhat of a coup.
Chances were at a premium under Alex Neil though, and after a couple of months the signing was starting to not make sense. Why would Preston invest a large fee in a player they weren’t willing to play? In his first season at the club he made just one appearance in the league.
The 2020/21 season saw him make 11 appearances in the Championship but just two of them were as a starter. He scored one goal against Nottingham Forest, but as Frankie McAvoy took over, Bayliss was allowed to join Wigan Athletic on loan.
He only managed six starts for The Latics in their League One title winning season and eventually Bayliss was allowed to leave for free last summer.
His career could have gone one of two ways then, but luckily for him, the move to Shrewsbury has turned out to be a shred choice for both parties. They currently sit in ninth place in League One with an outside chance of the play-offs, and Bayliss will be glad to have had a good run of games this season for the first time in over three years.
With his impressive goal contributions, you can only wonder whether he could have delivered more for Preston if given the chance.