After staving off relegation last season by the skin of their teeth, Preston North End head into a new campaign with signings aplenty but still many question marks hanging over the squad.
Deepdale Digest preview the upcoming Championship season for Preston, which sees Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Southampton all return straight back to this level, whilst big spenders Birmingham City and Wrexham look to continue their momentum.
Last season
Last season was a disaster just one game into the Championship campaign. Ryan Lowe walked after the opening day defeat to Sheffield United. The timing was awful, but many agreed that it was correct for both parties to go their separate ways. But it left North End scrambling around for a replacement.
In came Paul Heckingbottom who didn’t have much chance to stamp his mark on the squad, but performances did pick up. The team was never consistent however, and aside from a very good cup run, league form was hit and miss and the football on offer was dull at times.
Defensive mistakes and a lack of creativity meant The Lilywhites struggled at both ends of the pitch. We have become accustomed to a drop off from April onwards, but last season’s decline was something else.
1 win in the last 15 games meant North End only escaped relegation due to Luton Town losing on the last day of the season. In truth, we probably deserved to be relegated; the performances in those last 15 games were horrendous, and it didn’t look like they had a care in the world.
Any hint of a hangover from last season, and it will be a struggle again.
Signings
Paul Heckingbottom did say he would want to throw a bomb under this squad, and whilst many remain he has been able to move some players around. The loss of Kaine Kesler-Hayden and Emil Riis will be felt, especially as they have moved to other teams in the league in Coventry City and Bristol City respectively.
I do believe we have improved the goalkeeping department; we all know how good Daniel Iversen can be, and hopefully a lack of match practice in the past few years doesn’t hinder him. Freddie Woodman was too error prone and has already settled for becoming a number three goalkeeper at the age of just 28. Jack Walton will also be a stronger understudy than Dai Cornell.
The most exciting signings by far this summer are Thierry Small and Odel Offiah. The fans who were present for our FA Cup tie against Charlton Athletic last season saw first-hand how dangerous Small can be. The 21-year-old should have a high resale value as well, but we must play in a way that gets the best out of him without being too reliant on his pace and 1-on-1 ability. He can’t be our sole attacking outlet.
Offiah is also a highly-rated young player fresh off the back of a promising loan spell with our neighbours Blackpool. These are players to hopefully build the team around over the next few years.
The signing of Jordan Thompson already seems to have been a poor decision, with the club recently stating that he will be missing for a while after his injury was misdiagnosed. Really poor from all involved in this, and it makes you question why we rushed to sign him so early in the window. Meanwhile the man he came in to replace; Ryan Ledson, has just been made captain of Huddersfield Town and would no doubt have jumped at another contract at Deepdale. So we look a lot weaker in that area.
Daniel Jebbison arrives on loan from Bournemouth after working with Paul Heckingbottom at Sheffield United. Jebbison has yet to kick-on in his career, and you really feel he has to make an impact this season if he is to get anywhere near to living up to his early hype. There have been some bright sparks in pre-season.
Michael Smith was a cheap option, as he walked away from Sheffield Wednesday, who will struggle to field a team on the opening day of the season. He will give us an alternative up front, a proper target man which we have lacked for a while, but will more often than not be used from the bench you would think, and in tough away games.
The other two signings at the time of writing look set to be squad players, but also and most frustratingly suggest we will be predominantly sticking with the wing-back formation. Pol Valentin is another free transfer from Wednesday, but it looks extremely unlikely he will provide anywhere near the level that Kesler-Hayden did. Valentin started just 14 games for The Owls last season, and pace seems his main attribute, but defending and an end product may be lacking.
Lastly Milutin Osmajic’s Montenegrin mate has arrived. Andrija Vuckcevic has done incredibly well to land himself a three-year deal after initially joining the club on trial. The left-sided player has had a nomadic career up until now which has taken him to Mexico, Spain, Croatia, Belgium, and Serbia as well as his homeland. Likely to be a wing-back option on the left but who knows who will be the starting player in that spot.
Formation
The signings suggest the shape of the team won’t be changing, which is worrying for a few reasons. In defence it means that at least one of Jordan Storey, Liam Lindsay and Andrew Hughes will still be part of the three man defence. It’s likely to be the latter on the left-hand side, with Lewis Gibson and Odel Offiah taking up the other spots.
Wing-backs were adopted under Frankie McAvoy and then Ryan Lowe, and you can count on one hand the amount of times that formation has looked good on the eye, and seemed like the right fit for this squad.
Small is capable of playing on both sides, whilst Brad Potts is still an option on the right as well as Valentin. On the left Vuckcevic is now an option, along with the forgotten Jeppe Okkels and Robbie Brady who was surprisingly given another contract.
In short, whichever side Small doesn’t play on will be the weaker one, and there will be a lot of reliance on him.
That’s also down to there being limited creativity in the rest of the side. This is a big season for Mads Frokjaer. The Dane has had promising moments in his first two seasons, but went missing towards the end of the last. Just five league goals in those two seasons isn’t the best of returns and he will need to step up, especially as there is currently no other number 10 type creative midfielder in the squad unless Potts can step into that role.
Sam Greenwood was a class player in patches last season. If he was consistent throughout then he would be a huge player for any team in this league. I wouldn’t have been against him returning on loan or permanently, as there is definitely a very skillful player in there, one who contributed seven goals and three assists last season.
Duane Holmes has also not been replaced, a reliable and versatile player who would pop up with goal contributions also. It’s obvious that this squad is still lacking in the final third, and money will have to be spent in that area.
With Thompson injured for the foreseeable, Ali McCann, Ben Whiteman and Stefan Thordarson are the options in the middle. Hopefully McCann can avoid an injury lay-off as we are weaker without him, but he’s never managed more than 31 league games in a season for us.
I wouldn’t mind if Whiteman was moved on to free up some funds for others, and Thordarson showed glimpses of quality at times but needs to be more consistent. Perhaps this is an area for one of the youngsters to step up.
Osmajic will be key once again, but there is still a potential ban hanging over him, and we need him to be available for the full season. History suggests Jebbison and Smith can’t be relied on for double figures which is what Emil Riis would give us.
Competition
The money being spent in this league is making it harder than ever before for North End to compete, and build their squad. There is always huge transfer fees from the yo-yo sides who come down from the Premier League, but newly promoted sides Birmingham City and Wrexham are splashing cash left, right and centre and had already been planning for the Championship whilst in League One.
The signings of Demarai Gray and Bright Osayi-Samuel for Birmingham are players we could only dream of having. Whilst Lewis O’Brien and Josh Windass have been linked with Preston in the past but have now signed for a team who weren’t even in the Football League just over two years ago. Conor Coady has also recently signed for Wrexham. The defender was at the World Cup with England in 2022 when Wrexham weren’t even in the Football League
Even Charlton who came up via the play-offs have made some strong signings and haven’t been afraid to get the cheque book out – Charlie Kelman and Isaac Olaofe as well as a raft of players from Luton Town.
Derby County have spent close to £7.5million on Patrick Agyemang (not that one) from Charlotte FC and can partner him with Carlton Morris up front, with Rhian Brewster also a decent pick up on a free transfer.
Other clubs seem to regularly be spending £3-4 million on foreign imports, and whilst some are helped by player trading or parachute payments, there are other clubs in the same position as Preston who seem to be pushing the boat out.
Key player – One that hasn’t signed yet hopefully.
Prediction – 21st
Preston are getting outspent by nearly everyone else in the Championship. Luckily for them Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday have huge off the field problems to deal with and the latter will almost certainly occupy one of the relegation places this season. Aside from that it’s hard to suggest North End are better than any other sides in the league.
Oxford United have one of the weaker squads, but in Gary Rowett they have an experienced enough manager who is savvy enough to drag them away from a relegation battle.
The likes of Watford, Swansea City, Stoke City, Blackburn Rovers or Queens Park Rangers are always hard to predict so hopefully one of those have a nightmare season and gets dragged into the relegation mix, but Preston will surely be involved in that too. Last season was horrendous and just because we’ve signed lots of new players, doesn’t mean we will be any better off. The squad still needs a desperate injection of quality.
The club have been treading water for too long at this level. It is only a matter of time before we sink. Every club around us seems to be progressing whilst we hope for the best every season. There are some promising signs with a couple of the transfers having a long-term vision, but there is a lot of work to do still.
There was a lack of leadership on the pitch last season, which was evident whenever we went a goal down or even went a goal up. We would struggle to get back into games, and even hold onto leads. It’s hard to see if that will change, and with a tough start to the season it wouldn’t be a surprise to see heads drop once again.