Alex Neil hails Preston North End’s sensible financial approach to see them through crisis

Some Championship clubs are having to negotiate wage deferrals with players and staff as they face weeks and months with no cash coming through the turnstiles.

PNE are in the fortunate position of not having to go down that route, with Neil thanking owner Trevor Hemmings for taking that stance.

Like all his players and coaching staff, Neil is sitting tight at home waiting for the day to come when training can resume at Springfields.

A provisional date to start training is May 16 ahead of a June 6 resumption of the season – subject to permission from the Government. North End manager Neil said: “Preston are run on a tighter budget than the majority of teams in this league, that is the way which the owner does it.

“He doesn’t want to fling money at it which doing so would naturally brings a lot of wastage.

“We try and invest and grow the club with a lot of younger players, with a dash of experience to help them.

“That is done in a manner which is as cost effective as possible.

“We’re still giving ourselves an opportunity to compete.

“When you are talking about wage cuts and deferrals, the salaries which some clubs are forking out is disproportionate to what they have got in terms of cash.

“Our money is accounted for – that is for the whole season. The boss at the start of every season looks at what the incomings are roughly going to be and what the outgoings are going to be.

“He then makes up what the shortfall will be. If our players had to take wage cuts to the extent other clubs are talking about, it wouldn’t be that substantial amount, if that makes sense.

“If you are talking about guys at some clubs on £100,000 a week, that would be a substantial amount.

“The owner and Peter Ridsdale deserve a lot of credit that we don’t have to follow suit.”

Neil is keeping in contact with the squad either through his fitness staff, who are doing online training with them, or by phoning them himself.

He gave the players some downtime last week in terms of scaling back the fitness work but that will start to gradually build up again with a view of the May 16 return.

Said Neil: “I touch base by dropping them a text and we’ve got the staff doing the sessions with them.

“I rang them all last week, it took me three hours one day and three hours the next day to reach them all and have a chat.”