From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match10 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Preston
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Wassim Bouziane is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Harrison Reed was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.91, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Preston training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rhys Williams is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I watch every Preston game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Brighton runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Match10 Oct 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
The chances came and went for Lewis Dobbin
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Oct 2026
Beaten 1‑4 by Leeds United, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Match3 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Preston
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Preston training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Iversen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 319% of everything Preston earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Harrison Reed at his very best
Marked 8.20. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Preston.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Ali McCann gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Preston
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Preston are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Sep 2026
Birmingham left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.73 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Alfie Devine falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ben Whiteman, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Daniel Iversen's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match16 Sep 2026
Cup progress for Preston
A 1‑1 win over Charlton Athletic, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad21 Sep 2026
Harry Gerrard damages knee ligaments — 15 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 15 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
31 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Lee Nicholls decides it from twelve yards
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Cathal O'Sullivan could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.55
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.55, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match19 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for Preston
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Preston are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Daniel Iversen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Harry Gerrard
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Preston lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match12 Sep 2026
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Lewis Gibson will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Preston escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Daniel Iversen falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 8.94 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Harrison Reed, and the manager let it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 8.84 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
Rhys Williams gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rhys Williams has just signed for Preston, and for once the answer mattered.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Preston heard it as anything else.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Preston training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Iversen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Wages eat 218% of everything Preston earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Jordan Storey
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 25 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ben Whiteman in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 19, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Preston training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brad Potts is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ben Whiteman dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jamal Lewis, and the manager let it.
Match29 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Bolton Wanderers will be the happier side with the point.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Shots: 6. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
Liam Lindsay hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Preston can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
26 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Lewis Gibson in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Lewis Gibson at his very best
Marked 9.64. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Preston.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Preston training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Iversen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Andrew Moran has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lewis Gibson. 1‑0 against Cardiff City, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Andrew Moran was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.35. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market17 Aug 2026
The chase for Harrison Reed ended with $4.2M changing hands and Fulham out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Preston have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
3 academy players handed senior numbers at Preston
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Milutin Osmajić, and the manager let it.
Market17 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Matthew Young has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nathan Murphy has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Match15 Aug 2026
Derby County left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Alfie Devine falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Daniel Iversen commits to Preston for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lewis Gibson, and the manager let it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Preston training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brad Potts is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Market10 Aug 2026
Jamal Lewis told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Jamal Lewis has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Preston.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Preston did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ben Whiteman and Preston agree another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Lewis Gibson in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Preston this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Preston training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniel Iversen is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Market3 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Milutin Osmajić has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Preston.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months and counting on Ben Whiteman
Still no offer on the table, and Ben Whiteman’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.