PNE struck gold in the loan market once again this season
Sign up to our Preston North End newsletter
Sign up
Thank you for signing up!
Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Lancashire Evening Post, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more.
Submitting...
Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom played the latest question over Alfie Devine’s future with a straight bat.
The Tottenham Hotspur man has had an excellent loan spell with the Lilywhites this year, scoring eight goals and assisting seven in the Championship. PNE, as well documented, have an expensive buy option inserted in the loan agreement.
Even if they were to trigger that, it would still need Devine to agree to the move. The midfielder put in another impressive performance in the penultimate game of the campaign, as PNE beat Sheffield United 3-2 on Saturday.
Talk around Devine has intensified given the reported takeover interest from US-born Saudi businessman, Amr Zedan. Heckingbottom was asked post-match at Bramall Lane whether Devine would be number one on the list, should the club get added investment.
“Listen, yeah, I want to keep them all,” said Heckingbottom. “I'm not going to speak about individuals because you'll quote me on that. I know information you don't and I know information I don't want to tell you, so I'll just play that one coy.”
Preston have had several loan stars over the last few years but retaining them has always been beyond reach. The PNE boss, a few times now, has emphasised the need to try and not lose all of them.
“They've all enjoyed it,” said Heckingbottom. “We worked really hard to get them in the summer. We were the ones who put ourselves forward. We were the ones who got the commitment. We were the ones who impressed them.
“We were the ones who worked really hard with them. We were the ones who made them better, pushed them. That's our job. Can we keep them, can we get the benefit from it? We'll always market ourselves and I'm willing to take other loan players.
“I've always done it, which is fine, so we'll do that again. The loan market's going to be big for us again next season, I know that. The work we do with those boys is a great advertisement for anyone else.”