What Preston North End's boss made of £1.5m+ signing's debut after move from Plymouth Argyle

Lewis Gibson assured he was ready for his Preston North End debut and the defender caught Paul Heckingbottom’s eye on Tuesday.

PNE’s boss started the centre-back in the third round FA Cup clash against Charlton Athletic - which North End won 2-1 thanks to Milutin Osmajic’s brace.

Gibson played in the middle of Preston’s back three on the night with Jordan Storey to high right and Andrew Hughes left. The 24-year-old completed the 90 minutes.

Wearing number 19 the former Plymouth Argyle man was composed in possession and both alert and aggressive without it. The North End manager liked what he saw from his new player.

"Yeah, pleased with him," said Heckingbottom. "I expect him to play that way. Defends properly, good organiser. He'll take the ball as he's comfortable on the ball.

“I wanted to give him his debut early and make sure that was done and dusted. I think you can see as well why he's come in. He played in the middle, then he moved to the left.

“We want to try and create that as well now on the right-hand side, whether it’s Jack or Jordan, and make sure that we've got that flexibility on the other side as well. Lots of the things impressed me.

"The thing I was pleased with the most were the bits without the ball - how he defended the box. I mentioned the block already at the end.

“But even when the ball's not near him and his man, he's doing the right things. I've been really pleased with our centre-backs throughout my time here with that.

"Obviously knowing them, playing against them, I know it's the strength of theirs. But we still want to improve. We still want to be better at it so we don't have to sit in a deep block all the time and make it that much harder for the opposition when we're still a threat attacking.

“Sometimes we may be one-for-one at the back or need some emergency defending; we want to be able to do that as well."