Preston North End could be busy on goalkeeper recruitment this summer

The Lilywhites started the season with four senior keepers on their books but once the campaign ends, the quartet could all have gone.

Declan Rudd announced his retirement last week due to a knee injury which three bouts of surgery couldn’t fix.

Daniel Iversen and Connor Ripley are first and second choices respectively, while Mathew Hudson is out on loan at Bamber Bridge until the end of the season.

Iversen is coming to the end of a second loan spell from Leicester City, having spent the second-half of last season and all of this campaign at Deepdale.

The Dane produced yet another man of the match performance in last Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to Derby County.

Whether North End can tempt the Foxes, and indeed Iversen to come back for 2022/23, is a work in progress but could well prove tricky.

Ripley, who has been on the bench for all Championship games since the start of January, will be out of contract at the end of June, so too Hudson.

The goalkeeping area was one highlighted by PNE director Peter Ridsdale when looking ahead to the summer regarding squad-building plans.

Ridsdale said: “We will have a significant number of vacancies in the playing squad this coming summer, either because of players out of contract or circumstances.

"We won’t have a contracted goalkeeper come the end of the season given the announcement about Dec, obviously the fact Daniel is on loan and our other two keepers are out of contract in the summer.”

Ripley and Hudson have had limited opportunities at Deepdale over the years. Ripley has only played a handful of games since being signed from Middlesbrough in January 2019, in the main being back-up to Rudd and then Iversen.

Hudson’s one game in PNE’s team came as a substitute in December 2015 in a Championship game against Leeds United at Elland Road.

North End have played the loan market well in terms of keepers over the years, with Sam Johnstone, Jordan Pickford and Iversen all having performed excellently.

Rudd also started life at PNE as a loanee, having two spells from Norwich before signing permanently in June 2017.

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