Preston North End used to be the most mediocre football team in the Championship, 11 straight years without play-offs or serious relegation fears. Now they’re not. Instead they’re the worst football team in the Championship.
After 11 league matches, the signs look impossibly bad. Preston have taken four measly points and there is already a gap to those clubs they would have hoped to finish above: Bolton, Cardiff, Charlton, Portsmouth, Lincoln. Just a bad run? Preston play four of the division’s current top seven in their next five games. Stopping the bleeding is proving a task beyond everyone.
Every element of the team looks broken. Preston have scored nine times in 11 matches because they average the fewest shots on target, have the worst shooting accuracy and rank second worst for converting the low number of shots they do have into goals.
And somehow that’s not the weakest part of the team. Preston have conceded 24 goals in 11 games; they’re on course to reach triple figures. Against Birmingham City last midweek, their defending was abysmal both individually and as a collective. Every mistake breeds another and no player seems able or willing to lead teammates on to be more competent.
Preston have already made their move. Paul Heckingbottom oversaw a dire run over the second half of last season – six points from 36 between January and March – kept his job despite fan unrest and was then sacked seven league games into this campaign. Is that joined-up thinking?
Heckingbottom’s replacement is club legend Graham Alexander, supported by club legend Chris Lucketti. In any other circumstances, that would whip up a frenzy of nostalgic goodwill that often provides tangible positive impact. But at Deepdale, the suspicion is that the club will drag the heroes down far quicker than it can be dragged up by them. Alexander has lost all three matches and conceded four goals twice already.
The great irony is that summer promised to knock the club out of its deep rut of apathy, just not like this. Preston spent big, beyond anyone’s reasonable expectations. Five of the top six largest transfer fees paid in the club’s history occurred in July or August 2026. They tried to address the age of the squad – six players aged 23 or under were signed.
None of it has worked. Last season, Preston’s best was fuelled by three excellent loan signings: Alfie Devine, top scorer Lewis Dobbin and Harrison Armstrong, an exceptionally talented midfielder for the level. Devine has joined permanently but no other signing has impressed. The three loanees – Liam Gibbs, Caleb Wiley, Jusef Erabi, Delano Burgzorg – have offered almost nothing positive of note.
The only caveat for the most stinging criticism is the uncertainty that reigns. A takeover by Saudi businessman Amr Zedan was first reported in January, with Zedan present at a home game in April. That takeover has still not reached completion.
But that’s barely half a defence. In August, a statement from chairman Ian Penrose told supporters that negotiations were still ongoing with parties, but that “this is not an easy and quick process, and there can be no certainty that a sale will be concluded”. It has been nine months – how long can “who knows?” last for?
All the while, Preston get worse and a takeover must seem less viable at the same price. Who wants to buy a club stuck in a spiral of its own incompetence?
Supporters can diagnose the issues – it’s not difficult and they are not stupid. If you have a collection of decision makers and leaders who you felt proved themselves incapable of making rational, sensible calls without spending heavily, what gave anyone confidence that they were the right people to oversee the spending?
Supporters understandably feel that there is an accountability vacuum. Peter Ridsdale, the CEO, and the recruitment team have questions to answer. Most obviously: how does an emphatically midtable football club embark upon a spree of squad spending after years of atrophy and immediately get far worse?
Except that maybe this is all interrelated. Being a Preston North End supporter has been hard for a long time. It erodes the spirit because it takes so much energy just to generate some excitement after repeated seasons of being disinterested by February at best. Unrequited hope becomes your bedfellow.
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How often does a magnificent rise actually follow such an extended slump? Instead, it’s far more likely that everybody gets stuck in a pattern of mediocrity that is impossible to dig their way out of. So when significant change finally comes, it is for the worse. Allow drift to consume your club and don’t be surprised when the end result is being sucked down a plughole.
And when you get there – no surprise – nobody really has the stomach to fight it. New signings have been sold a dream that isn’t real and have less emotional investment because they have just arrived. The old guard are familiar with the struggle but hardly in a good way.
Supporters are all out of anything useful at all bar grim loyalty. Those in charge have proven that they have no handle on how to make this work better. Welcome to Deepdale in 2026, where mediocrity is now the ceiling and the floor doesn’t exist.