Ben Woodburn is on trial at Preston and Ryan Lowe has suggested that there may yet be more trialists to come.
Reports of Woodburn joining Preston on trial emerged on Monday morning as North End returned for pre-season training.
The usual faces emerged at Euxton for the first day of pre-season but there was a surprise with Woodburn also there.
The 22-year-old has been released by Liverpool this summer and is now on the hunt for a new club.
Woodburn spent last season on loan at Scottish club Heart of Midlothian, registering just three goals and two assists in 30 games.
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The Welshman had no future at Liverpool and now finds himself as a free agent.
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North End boss Lowe is a big Liverpool fan so will know all about Woodburn, who became the Reds’ youngest-ever goalscorer in 2016.
Woodburn has allegedly agreed a two-week trial spell with Preston and the first photo of him in action at Euxton has now emerged.
Lowe has now spoken publicly about Woodburn for the first time, telling iFollow that he thinks Woodburn is a ‘fantastic’ player.
Lowe admitted that he actually wanted to sign Woodburn for Plymouth Argyle but couldn’t quite tempt him down to Devon.
The North End boss feels that Woodburn really is a ‘fantastic talent’ and hopes to ‘get a tune out of him’ over the coming weeks.
Lowe did note that Woodburn has suffered a ‘dip in form’ in recent times but he now has a chance to shine at Preston.
One interesting note is that Lowe added that Woodburn likely won’t be Preston’s only trialist, hinting that more free agents will be coming to train with North End this summer in an attempt to win a deal.
“Ben Woodburn has been a fantastic player, he’s represented Wales at a young age of 17 and represented Liverpool,” said Woodburn. “He’s 22 years of age and I’ve followed his career for a while, from when he was at Liverpool. I tried to do a deal to get him down to Plymouth when I first came down there, but he’d obviously been playing at a higher level. Obviously his contract’s now ended at Liverpool. He was up with Hearts in Scotland last season and he’s a fantastic talent.”
“We’re hoping we can get a tune out of him. He’s going to be with us for a few weeks and it’s over to Ben now to showcase what he’s really about, because with the likes of Ben who have probably had a little bit of a dip in form of late over the years, we’re coaches and managers that want to try and bring the best back out of young lads like him.”
“He’ll be with us for a little while. He’s a fantastic kid, he’s trained fantastically well today, a good footballer, but there’s probably one or two more as well that’ll probably come in with us over the pre-season training because it’s good that we can have a look at them and they can get a look at us. Ben won’t be the only one, there will hopefully be another one or two in who can come training with us, and we will get a good feel for them,” he added.