Lindegaard signs for PNE

The Dane has signed a one-year deal with the Lilywhites after leaving West Bromwich Albion on Friday.

Albion cancelled the remaining 12 months on Lindegaard’s contract by mutual consent, allowing him to move as a free agent.

He spent more than three months on loan with North End in the second-half of last season, making 14 appearances.

PNE boss Simon Grayson was always keen to try and turn it into a permanent transfer, with that dependant on Lindegaard reaching a settlement with Albion over his contract at the Hawthorns.

Fallback options were looked at in case they could not secure Lindegaard, North End considering a list of potential loan keepers including Sam Johnstone, Declan Rudd, Angus Gunn and Jed Steer.

But they got their man in the end, Grayson very pleased to have got the deal over the line.

Grayson said: “I think it’s a real good signing for us, we’ve worked hard behind the scenes to try and make this happen and I’m grateful to West Brom for helping us do that.

“It’s great that Anders made it clear from the start that he wanted to come here and we have been able to secure him on a permanent basis.

“We are delighted with it and it’s another step along the way with the recruitment process that we’ve been doing over the summer.”

Lindegaard said: “It was a very easy decision. I could have gone to several other clubs in England, but it was a no brainer, I wanted to stay here.

“I’m really happy that things have fallen into place before we get closer to the season.”

The 32-year-old keeper played in Denmark and Norway before joining Manchester United for £3.5m from Aalesund in January 2011.

He stayed at Old Trafford until last summer but made only 19 appearances in the United first-team.

Lindegaard was to play only once for West Brom and January’s loan switch to North End gave him his first consistent run of first-team football for some time.

North End hope that his arrival and that of Chris Maxwell from Fleetwood earlier in the close season, will bring some stability to the goalkeeper position at Deepdale.

After leaning heavily on the loan market in the last few seasons, they now have two keepers signed-up on permanent contracts.

Lindegaard is the fifth signing made by North End this summer, the others being Maxwell, Simon Makienok, Tommy Spurr and Eoin Doyle.

There could be more business in the coming few days with two potential deals on the go.