Dave Seddon's PNE pressview: Preston youngster Tom Bayliss beginning to put his name in the frame

For someone who hasn’t played very often in his 16 months at Preston North End, Tom Bayliss gets talked about a lot.
Tom BaylissTom Bayliss
Tom Bayliss

It is the fact that he has been used so sparingly that gets tongues wagging, there being a real curiosity about the young midfielder for who PNE paid a handsome price to land from Coventry.

Signed on the back of two seasons playing regularly for the Sky Blues, Bayliss has had a show a first-class honours degree in patience.

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After arriving in August 2019, he played just four times in his first six months at Deepdale – three games in the Carabao Cup and a start in the FA Cup.

Then an ankle operation and the first lockdown delayed another further involvement in the squad until the summer restart.

Bayliss’ Championship bow came on the final night of last season as a substitute at Bristol City.

This campaign, he’s had three Carabao Cup starts and the same number of outings from the bench in the league.

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Those substitute runs against Watford, AFC Bournemouth and Middlesbrough, coupled with recent comments from Alex Neil, would suggest his breakthrough is starting to come at PNE.

Granted, the 21-year-old joined the action at Watford with the game over, Preston 4-1 down at the time.

Down on the south coast at Bournemouth, he was one of four subs made early in stoppage-time as North End regrouped while Patrick Bauer was being tended to after damaging an Achilles tendon.

That added-on time stretched to 11 minutes, so at least Bayliss was being trusted at a critical stage of the game as PNE held on to their 3-2 lead.

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Moving on to Wednesday night against Boro, Bayliss was part of a 75th minute triple change.

It was only 1-0 at the time, with him replacing skipper Alan Browne in the engine room. What it wasn’t was a change to run the clock down and kill a few seconds.

Signs again of more trust being put in the youngster who hails from Leicester.

Neil name checked him after the game when the conversation turned to the substitutions, in the main the impact Emil Riis had.

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“Tom has looked better and better, I’ve been saying that for a while,” said the Lilywhites boss.

“He showed some good composure out there.”

The fact that North End fans like to talk about Bayliss and question why he’s not been playing, is down to a couple of things.

Firstly, his price tag. In this era of undisclosed fees, you can never be 100% sure what money a player moves clubs for.

It’s recognised that PNE paid a sizeable fee for Baylis, in or around the club’s £1.5m record pay-out.

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For that reason alone, supporters will want to see what has been paid for.

The fact that recruitment has slowed in the last 18 months, means that when a player does sign, there’s going to be a lot of interest in what he can do.

Bayliss signed on the eve of the 2019/20 season, at the same time as Andre Green came on loan.

The other two arrivals that summer had been Bauer and David Nugent.

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Last winter, Scott Sinclair was the single arrival, with Emil Riis the autumn’s one purchase.

Perhaps we should take a leaf out of Ryan Ledson’s book when it comes to Bayliss’ use in the first-team.

Ledson has had to be patient himself, not to the extent Bayliss has, but patient nevertheless.

Ledson got a decent amount of football in the 2018/19 season after joining from Oxford, partly because at the time he was regarded as Ben Pearson’s understudy.

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Pearson’s liking for a few yellow cards and indeed a couple of reds, opened the door for Ledson.

Mind you, Ledson saw red twice himself that first season which saw him spend time on the sidelines.

This time last year, Ledson had only played seven times in the 2019/20 season – one of those games being the 4-0 defeat at Hull when he was pressed into service as a right-back.

It was only after the restart that he began to get a run of games and Ledson hasn’t looked back since.

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This season the former Everton junior has started 15 of PNE’s 17 Championship games and come off the bench in the other two.

At the moment Ledson is one of the first names on the team sheet, his passing game having been a big bonus.

Maybe we need to take that longer-term view with Bayliss, that sometimes a regular run isn’t going to come straight away.

With Pearson out for a few weeks, with Paul Gallagher also injured and now part of the coaching scene, with five substitutes allowed, with matches piling up, more opportunities should knock for Bayliss.

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He is certainly a player who has benefited from the EFL’s decision to allow nine subs on the bench and bring on five for the remainder of this season.

Wednesday night’s win over Middlesbrough was an outcome not seen for many years – 48 years to be exact.

North End hadn’t beaten Boro at Deepdale since Easter Monday in 1972.

On Teeside they had triumphed in the meantime, beating them 1-0 at Ayresome Park in the FA Cup in January 1987, then at the Riverside Stadium in the league in March 2019.

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But for whatever reason, beating the Smoggies at Deepdale had been an issue.

A PNE regular posted on Twitter after the game that North End had started to beat teams this season who generally they hadn’t done too well against in the past.

Preston won at Derby in the Carabao Cup, Pride Park not having previously brought them much joy.

Brentford were beaten 4-2 away, PNE not having won on Bees turf since 2011.

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There was a first win at Huddersfield’s John Smith’s Stadium, while victories at Reading’s Madejski Stadium had been few and far between.

All those wins have been behind closed doors, we can only hope such days are closer to coming to an end.