Preston North End's Urgent Need for Wins Under Paul Heckingbottom
Paul Heckingbottom knows the score. Money has been spent, players have arrived, and patience is already wearing thin at Deepdale.
Preston North End sit bottom of the Championship, four games played, four defeats, three goals scored. The table is brutal, and so is his assessment.
“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,” he told BBC Radio Lancashire.
Backed in the market, exposed on the pitch
Preston did not lurk quietly in the summer. A dozen new signings came through the door across July and August as the club handed Heckingbottom what he describes as unprecedented backing. For a side that faded badly last spring, it felt like a reset.
Last season, North End sat fourth in January, daring to glance at the Premier League. Then the wheels came off: just three wins in their final 15 league games and a slide to 14th. The collapse framed this summer’s urgency.
Heckingbottom insists the rebuild left him undercooked when the campaign kicked off.
“There's no way we had a competitive team at the start of the season,” he said. “The squad has changed every single week from the first game.”
That excuse has a shelf life. By his own admission, they are past it.
From long-term vision to short-term reality
The manager is quick to stress gratitude to the board for loosening the purse strings, but he keeps returning to the club’s broader project.
“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.
That line speaks to a longer arc: build, develop, sell well, reinvest. Grow the club properly.
“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.”
The message is clear. The grand plan can wait. Right now, Preston simply need points.
Goals in short supply, solutions in short supply too
The numbers in the final third tell their own story. Three goals in four Championship matches. No cutting edge, no margin for error.
Heckingbottom points to one key issue: the centre-forward department has been ripped apart.
“Even now, we lost five centre-forwards in the summer, and we've replaced them with two,” he said.
That imbalance forces improvisation. Wide players pushed higher. Midfielders asked to arrive in the box. Set-pieces drilled and redrilled.
“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.”
It is not a romantic vision, but it is a realistic one. If the strikers are thin on the ground, everyone else has to join the hunt.
Derby day with pressure attached
All of this rolls into Saturday, and a fixture that rarely needs extra spice: Blackburn Rovers, Lancashire rivals, and a fanbase that will not tolerate another flat afternoon.
Preston have spent heavily, rebuilt aggressively and talked openly about competing at a higher level. The manager has his squad. The excuses are running out.
Now comes Blackburn, the kind of game that can either ignite a season or deepen the gloom.
