Preston North End sit proudly at the top of the Championship after seven games. Six wins in a row have seen The Lilywhites take the rest of the league by surprise so far.
Although five of those wins have just been by the one goal margin, the overall team effort has been superb, and the last ditch defending has been key to securing the three points. There have been two clean sheets so far, with just five goals being conceded in the league. Only Leicester City can mirror that in the against goals column.
However at the other end of the pitch 12 goals have been scored, and all but three of those have been scored by summer signings. Aside from an own goal from Birmingham City, and efforts from Liam Lindsay and Andrew Hughes, all the goals have come from the influx of players brought in by Ryan Lowe in recent months.
You always want a new signing to hit the ground running, and with key players such as Daniel Johnson leaving the club, and Tom Cannon unable to be tempted back, we needed the new players to make impacts and quickly. However I don’t think many would have predicted how key they would become so quickly.
Firstly Will Keane led the line on his own superbly for the first five games. It’s signature was met with a mixed response when he joined from Wigan Athletic, but that was quickly forgotten when he scored on the opening day against Bristol City. He followed that up with one against Sunderland and both goals in a 2-0 win away to Stoke City.
In the aforementioned Sunderland game, it was Mads Frokjaer who scored the winner. It was also his shot that deflected off Keane to give us the lead in the first place.
Duane Holmes has arguably been the standout player across the first seven games so far. He has endless energy and always seems to have the ball in dangerous situations. He scored the winner against Swansea City as well as grabbing the very early opener at home to Plymouth Argyle.
Holmes also scored in the Carabao Cup against Salford City, and picked up an assist in that game. He has laid on further goals this season for Keane at Stoke and Bristol City. As well as winning the penalty at the Bet 365 stadium. So effectively he’s already had seven goal contributions this season.
Most recent signings Liam Millar and Milutin Osmajic both found the match winning goals in the last week. It didn’t take long for Millar to announce himself to Preston fans with a lovely run and assist inside the first minute at home to Plymouth. Later in the half he scored his own solo goal, and went on to win the man of the match award. An exciting player no doubt, and the type of player that we have been lacking for quite some time.
Osmajic didn’t see much of the ball in the win over Birmingham City but when he was played through by Alan Browne he gave the ‘keeper no chance, rifling the ball home to give Preston the win.
Lowe now has a plethora of options available to him, and with players returning from injury and others still to come, its hard to predict team line-ups in the coming weeks. There’s competition in all areas, and there are good options to come from the bench.
The new players have complimented the existing ones well, and there is a great feeling around the club at the moment. There seems to have been no problems in terms of settling in, and this looks like a very tight knit squad, which bodes very well for the rest of the campaign