Jacob Holland-Wilkinson has been handed a contract by Stoke City and will join up with their Under-21 squad this season.
The 19-year-old left Preston North End at the end of last season after his one-year professional contract came to an end.
Despite regular goals for the youth team, Holland-Wilkinson never made a first-team appearance although he was named as a substitute a few times.
Stoke have now confirmed the signing of Holland-Wilkinson as part of three Under-21 additions.
The move to Stoke is a good one as their Under-21 side play in the very competitive Premier League 2.
It is a credit to Holland-Wilkinson after leaving Preston that he kept himself fit and managed to get a contract sorted even after the season had started.
The striker had been on North End’s books since the age of 14 and was a big fan of Alex Neil, who first brought him into the squad.
During the COVID-19 season behind closed doors and with an extended substitute bench allowed, Holland-Wilkinson was in and around the first team picture for the majority of the season.
However last time around, he only trained with the first team twice.
The striker is in good company at Stoke with Dwight Gayle new there for this season, and also Tyrese Campbell and Di’Margio Wright-Phillips also at the club; the sons of Kevin Campbell and Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Holland-Wilkinson joins Joe Rodwell-Grant as another former Preston striker signing by terms with a fellow Championship club for this season.
Rodwell-Grant is now at Wigan Athletic with their development squad.
Hopefully those moves don’t haunt us and with Ethan Walker at Blackburn Rovers too it shows that the gap between our youth team and the first team squad is big but with there not much opportunity in between, other clubs can give these players a go to see if they develop further.
Tyrhys Dolan is of course the one that hurts most.
Having excelled at Blackburn, scored against Preston and gone on to play and score for England’s Under-20 team. Mikey O’Neill is the only one at the club who has broken through recently but professional debuts were handed to Lewis Leigh and Jacob Slater so there is hope for others to make