Preston North End boss Ryan Lowe pleased with pre-season opener but admits new faces are needed

North End were 1-0 up at half time after fielding a side largely made up of last season’s first team crop. Most departed for the second half, with only Dai Cornell, Liam Lindsay and Jordan Storey recognised senior pros, but the youthful side added six goals to finish the game 7-0.

Nathan Pond’s own goal gave the Lilywhites the lead before Jacob Slater scored the first of his two goals, with Kitt Nelson also scoring two, Mikey O’Neill and substitute Felipe Rodriguez-Gentile all finding the net.

“The results irrelevant really, it's just about the minutes,” Lowe said. “It was good to get a stronger 45 minutes in the first half with the lads getting through it well. The pitch was a bit dry and cutting up but we knew what we were getting out of it.

"The young lads in the second half, I thought they were fantastic. I've said to them that that's the standard they've set in pre-season over the last week or so, they've been excellent. Some of them have been doing extra sessions and you can see it paying off.

"More importantly is getting some volume and some minutes into the lads legs because we changed pre-season a little this season. We've gone a little bit more football orientated with a ball and runs with a ball.

"The lads have come back in fantastic shape so we know that we don't have to beast them with runs. I'm pleased to get 45 minutes into them today and some good goals.”

There’s plenty more work to come for North End this summer, as they prepare to jet off to Spain for their summer training camp in Campoamor.

Lowe expects that to be the case for many clubs at the moment but is looking at external ways he can improve his side, such as making some additions.

He said: “We're nowhere near where we want to be just yet, no team is, up and down the country. It's quite quiet. What I do know is that we've got a squad that I feel is capable of what they did last season.

"Right now, we need a couple of additions and we're on with that but you see a couple of the younger lads. I'm not saying they're going to be our saviours and help us right the way through because it's a tough league but we've got nine subs next season as well now, that makes a big difference for the youngsters.

"We're nowhere near where we want to be just yet, we've got five weeks to go before the first game of the season. We'll keep going, we'll keep adding. It's been five days of training so we'll keep building to get to where we want to get to.”