Football Season Guide

After almost sleepwalking into relegation the previous campaign, Preston very much reverted to type and returned to the mid-table mediocrity they’ve found themselves in for over a decade. A final tally of 15 wins, 15 draws and 16 losses tells its own story of a club stuck in permanent Championship purgatory. Paul Heckingbottom has achieved promotion before with Sheffield United and did initially threaten to break the mould at Deepdale. PNE were in and around the play-off places for much of the first half of the campaign, but the turn of the year ushered in another end-of-season slump. A recurring theme at the club has been a perceived lack of ambition from the hierarchy and there was certainly a failure to give Heckingbottom the required backing in the January transfer market to sustain their promotion push. After seeing one of their star performers Harrison Armstrong return to parent-club Everton at the end of his loan spell on New Years Day, it took until the end of the month for PNE to make their first signing of the window. It’s hard to tell whether the club has truly addressed those issues this summer. On the one hand, they’ve broken their transfer record to make another star loanee Alfie Devine into a permanent player. On the other hand, they weren’t able to keep hold of top scorer Lewis Dobbin and captain Ben Whiteman has unceremoniously departed for Wrexham after telling the club he no wanted to play for them. Other than locking down Devine, there hasn’t been much more activity. Middlesbrough striker Delano Burgzorg arrives on loan with Championship experience but has been known to blow hot and cold. Backup goalkeeper Lee Nicholls and relatively unknown forward Jusef Erabi are the only other confirmed as new signings at this stage.