Preston North End have headed into the international break in fifth place in the Championship after wins over Coventry City and Blackburn Rovers.
It has been an impressive season so far for Ryan Lowe’s side who find themselves in the top six with all three of the relegated sides who came down from the Premier League.
Parachute payments allow those sides to keep a lot of their key players, whilst any that do leave do so in exchange for vast sums of money. It leads to a yo-yo effect with a handful of teams bouncing between the divisions.
It makes it harder for Championship sides who have not had a taste of the Premier League for some time or ever at all. Luton Town’s play-off victory last season gave hope to many, but there isn’t much margin for ever if you are to secure one of the three promotion spots.
Leicester City have had an almost flawless opening three months to this season. The 2016 Premier League winners shouldn’t really be at this level, and with the likes of Jamie Vardy, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Kelechi Iheanacho and James Justin in the squad, plus the additions of Harry Winks and Conor Coady, they won’t be here for long.
Leeds United and Southampton are also in the top six after slow starts to the season. The surprise package is Ipswich Town who have carried their League One momentum in this season and show no signs of slowing down.
The Sportsman page on X; formerly known as Twitter, recently published the squad values of the top six according to Transfermarkt. It is an accumulation of all the values of the players in the squad and Leicester, Southampton and Leeds are far higher than the rest. The graphic shows Ipswich and Preston are doing very well to be keeping pace with the others, although it mistakenly puts Middlesbrough sixth instead of Sunderland.
Preston’s squad value is said to be £39m compared to Leicester City’s £220m. Leeds and Southampton are the only other teams worth over £100m, with Sheffield Wednesday said to have the lowest.
It’s unclear how they come up with these values, with Kian Best deemed only to be worth £262k, and it also has Calvin Ramsay as the highest valued player alongside Freddie Woodman, but Ramsay is only on loan from Liverpool.
However with Preston ranked 16th among the other Championship squad values, it shows the great job Ryan Lowe and his team are doing. They have found value in some foreign recruits this summer, and they are getting the best out of the squad.
There is more pressure on the bigger spenders to succeed, whereas Preston as a club and as fans know we always have a fight on our hands to compete at the top of this league, but it’s a battle we relish.