How Preston North End replaced the irreplaceable with Newcastle United man after star's Leicester City return

Like every team, North End had a few tasks at hand when it came to summer recruitment. The biggest area of concern was the goalkeeping department. It wasn’t that the players they had were not good enough, they were non-existent.

Daniel Iversen returned to parent club Leicester City – with the player of the year trophy in hand – and backup stoppers Connor Ripley and Mathew Hudson were both released.

That meant there were no senior goalkeepers on the books. James Pradic was a young ‘keeper with the U19s and has since been used as a third choice, but not yet ready for Championship football.

Credit to the the club, they acted swiftly to address the gaping hole in their squad and brought in Freddie Woodman and Dai Cornell. Woodman joined from Newcastle United for an undisclosed fee whilst Cornell was a free from Peterborough United.

The former arrived with plenty of pedigree and expectation, all connected with PNE were quick to praise what was an impressive piece of business. He came in at 25, with his best years ahead of him. He signed a long contract and had two play-off campaigns, a golden glove and a promotion from the Championship already acheived.

He was exactly the type of signing any fan would hope for, particularly after the heroics and reliance on Iversen over the past 18 months.

The jury, to a point, was still out on Woodman up until this week. He had made some good saves and obviously had a sensational start to the season when it came to clean sheets, nine in 12 league games, but had he been seriously tested?

Perhaps PNE have been used to an anomaly, Iversen was able to win points almost on his own with the incredible stops he was able to make and Woodman having not been tested too much was yet to fall into that category in a game.

That was until Karlan Grant went through one on one on Wednesday night and needed only to slot it past the ‘keeper – Woodman was having none of it. He came out sprawling and made the save, North End go on to win 1-0 and you can’t help but feel that save was worth two points.

It was the final piece in the puzzle to prove they had replaced the seemingly irreplaceable.

Woodman’s relative inactivity between the sticks so far is more a point to the exeptional defending in front of him so far this season but when called upon, he’s been near faultless so far.

When the defence are not enough, he has so far saved 90% of the shots that he has faced. It’s an extraordinary start.

Away from the pitch, Woodman seems to get the club. When speaking to the media he is open, welcoming and personable. He engages with the supporters and on Wednesday night you could see how much the win meant to him, he’s so quick to turn to the stands and join in with the celebrations.

North End have a top talent in Woodman, he could be their no.1 for many, many years to come. He is ambitious and will want to improve alongside the club.