Dave Seddon's PNE pressview: Preston quick off the mark in January transfer window

Three deals done in three days made for a busy early period of the window and it has the hallmarks of events two years ago.

In January 2019, North End had Jayden Stockley, Brad Potts and Josh Ginnelly through the door in the blink of an eye.

Connor Ripley wasn’t far behind, then later in the month Joe Rafferty arrived.

A couple more new faces and PNE will match those numbers in 2021.

Contrast that to the three windows in between when they did limited business in comparison.

Summer 2019 saw the arrivals of Patrick Bauer, David Nugent and Tom Bayliss, plus the loan deal for Andre Green.

In January last year, the Lilywhites limited themselves to bringing in Scott Sinclair from Celtic.

During the summer and autumn window, Emil Riis was the one new face to jet in at Deepdale.

Saying that, Riis didn’t come cheap with the £1.2m fee, while there would have been a significant amount spent on Sinclair’s wages.

In terms of numbers of actual bodies, this window does have the potential to surpass January 2019.

Although he is not a fan of the transfer window – he would probably rather stick pins in his eyes than get caught up in the circus – North End manager Alex Neil knows how key they are.

He’s been anxious for a long time to freshen up the squad.

It is quality which clubs always want to add but giving the place a fresh touch doing that is so important in the workings of football.

Players spend a lot of time in one another’s company, so a different dynamic being added every now and then doesn’t do any harm.

After welcoming in only two news faces in two windows, perhaps Neil feared the dressing room going a little stale.

So to have three in so far and by the looks of it more to come, even Neil might afford himself a smile.

Their big wish seems to be Ben Whiteman from Doncaster Rovers, the need to pay a substantial fee for him likely to require a bit of patience.

What else? A centre-half would seem likely, with Patrick Bauer out for the season and a question mark over Ben Davies’ future.

Anything else it would seem, is dependant on movement out of North End.

With Championship clubs limited to carrying a squad of 25 players above the age of 21, one or two of the existing squad might need to move on to create some wriggle room.

Of the incoming deals done to date, one was a necessity due to Declan Rudd being injured in training this week.

The goalkeeper is likely to be out for two or three months and that would have left only Connor Ripley and Mathew Hudson on the books as first-team keepers.

Bearing in mind Ripley had played only once in the Championship in the last season-and-a-half and Hudson’s single appearance for PNE’s first-team dates back to December 2015, another set of gloves was needed.

Daniel Iversen has come in from Leicester City until the end of the season.

The arrival of Jayson Molumby from Brighton on loan seems to have captured the imagination of the North End supporters.

He comes from a Premier League background and picked-up a season’s worth of Championship experience on loan at Millwall last season.

Ahead of PNE playing Millwall in February, I recall Molumby being one of their players name checked by Neil in the press conference.

Neil was talking about their recruitment and listed some of the players the Lions had signed.

Molumby is seen as a play anywhere type of midfielder and this loan spell might be a chance for him to settle more into a position.

He could well turn out to be a Ben Pearson type, just without the hair and beard.

If Molumby came in to quite a fanfare, the same could not be said of Ched Evans’ welcome.

The moment North End were linked with Evans, they were always striding into controversial territory.

I was genuinely surprised when North End pressed ahead to complete the deal.

The initial link with the striker just looked like a bit of an agent plant in the media to drum up interest.

Once it became clear that it was more than that, the storm began to brew.

That storm came on Wednesday lunchtime when the Evans deal was announced.

If social media is a barometer, it has divided the fanbase more than I can ever recall with a PNE signing.

There are those who are in the should not have touched him with a barge pole category, others take the opposite view.

I just worry that at a time when football and its fans are distanced from one another by Covid-19, this could drive a different kind of wedge between some supporters and North End – a divide which might not be bridged.

For the sake of a six-month loan deal, it does seem an awfully big gamble to take with the emotions and views of fans.

Just mentioning Covid, its shadow has cast itself over football to a much greater extent in recent weeks.

It has led to games being postponed or weakened teams being played to meet FA Cup commitments.

Will any team have been untouched in terms of having to postpone games or self-isolate players, by the time we are through this wave of the virus?

The EFL reintroducing twice-weekly testing from Monday coming, funded by the PFA, is so sensible.

That can pinpoint cases and get individuals isolated before spreading the virus round a dressing room.

Hopefully football can come through this without the need for a shutdown but it could become a close call at some stage.