Preston North End boss Ryan Lowe has fired a stern message to his players ahead of the January transfer window.
PNE’s exceptional start to the season has sadly drifted away.
North End have gone from six wins in a row and eight unbeaten to start the season to just two wins in the last 10.
PNE have lost six of those games and being top of the league feels like it was a long, long time ago now.
Tuesday’s 4-0 thrashing at Middlesbrough has left some fans piling the pressure on Lowe.
It’s reasonable to suggest that expectations have risen since that exceptional start to the campaign and a regression was expected.
Lowe needs to find a formula to get back on track though – and he is calling on his players to step up.
Ryan Lowe sends message to PNE squad ahead of January window
Lowe has told BBC Radio Lancashire that the PNE squad know things aren’t good enough right now, especially after a dire first-half display at Middlesbrough.
Lowe feels that the players are taking accountability for the poor displays but fired a warning shot to the squad.
The PNE boss suggested that he will give ‘one more chance’ to players to get it right, otherwise he will start making changes to his team.
Lowe added that he could even make changes in January if things don’t improve, seemingly making it clear that nobody is safe right now.
“It’s my team, my players, I’ll stick with them. They know it’s not good enough, which is pleasing for me because there’s no-one in there saying ‘it’s not my fault, it’s his fault’, not at all. We’ve let everyone down tonight and what we’ve got to do now is we’ve got to make sure that we put it right as quick as we possibly can because I think, barring the West Brom game at home and the first 45 minutes today, they’re the two bad games we’ve had out of 18 or 19.”
“I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve told them they’ve got one more chance to get it right, otherwise we’ll flip it around and we’ll change the team around, and if we have to make changes in January, then we will because we don’t just want to be a mediocre team and a mediocre club, we want to keep pushing and keep progressing, which I think we have been,” he added.
It’s hard to imagine that PNE will have a huge budget to play with in January.
Peter Ridsdale told the LEP just last week that North End are ‘right up against FFP’, so January spending may be limited.
North End may look for a few additions with defensive options surely wanted, but we aren’t expecting to see a repeat of January 2021, in which PNE went through a rarely-seen mid-season overhaul.
Lowe may have some changes in mind but having been backed with the signings of Mads Frøkjær-Jensen and Milutin Osmajic over the summer, it may be a case of loan signings for North End in January unless there are a few sales.