Preston North End's Rebuild: Time to Start Winning

Paul Heckingbottom knows the talking has to stop. The money has been spent, the squad rebuilt. Now Preston North End need wins.

Backed heavily in the summer, the Preston boss brought in 12 new faces across July and August, reshaping a side that has stumbled badly out of the blocks. Four Championship games, four defeats. Bottom of the table. The numbers are stark.

“There’s no way we had a competitive team at the start of the season,” Heckingbottom told BBC Radio Lancashire, lifting the lid on a chaotic opening month. “The squad has changed every single week from the first game.”

That turbulence, he argues, has now given way to something more stable. The excuses, by his own admission, cannot last.

“We’ve got the tools now. We’ve put the squad together. Now we have to get to work and get the wins. That’s the only way noise stops. You’ve got to start winning.

“We’ve made that first step to improve resources and be able to start to compete, and get to the level where we can really push.”

Last season offers a warning. Preston sat fourth in January, seemingly in the promotion conversation. Then the form fell off a cliff: just three wins in their final 15 games dragged them down to 14th. Momentum can vanish quickly at Deepdale. Regaining it is proving harder.

This summer, the board responded with what Heckingbottom describes as unprecedented backing. Bigger budget. More signings. A chance to reset. He is careful, though, not to sell the idea of an overnight transformation.

“The biggest thing that we had to do as a club if we want to move forward and start competing is make sure we can develop our own players,” he said.

“Ultimately the benefit is you have success together, or you sell players and move on and invest.

“Progression, finishing as high as we can, and winning promotion and growing the club is further down the line. The short term is just winning games.”

That short term now looks very immediate. Blackburn Rovers visit on Saturday, a Lancashire derby arriving at a time when Preston have scored only three league goals all season. The tension around Deepdale will rise quickly if that tally doesn’t start to move.

Heckingbottom knows where one of the problems lies. He lost five centre-forwards in the summer and only two have come through the door.

“Even now, we lost five centre-forwards in the summer, and we’ve replaced them with two,” he said. “We’re going to have to get goals and assists and create chances in other ways. We’ve tried that with the wider players.

“We’ll need goals from centre-backs as well this season, which we haven’t previously had enough of.”

So the challenge is clear: a new-look squad, a demanding fanbase, and a manager who has been backed to deliver. The rebuild is done. The derby will show whether Preston are ready to start climbing or bracing for another long, anxious season.