The dust is starting to settle on Paul Heckingbottom’s exit from Preston North End.
The 49-year-old departed the club on Sunday after just over two years at Deepdale, following a poor start to the season which has seen PNE lose six of their opening seven Championship games.
Below, we take a look at 10 of the highs and lows from his time in charge, plus a few honourable mentions of some of the other good times along the way.
1. Lowlight: PNE 1-2 Plymouth Argyle (26/4/2025)
The fourth consecutive defeat towards the end of North End's worst season in the Championship since their return in 2015. PNE were wasteful in front of goal that day; Emil Riis halved the deficit on the 90th minute but that was too late to spark a comeback. The loss meant there was a real chance of relegation on the final day. Thankfully, a 2-2 draw at Bristol City, as well as results elsewhere, kept them up as the Pilgrims, along with Cardiff City and Luton Town, dropped down to League One. | CameraSport - Alex Dodd
2. Lowlight: PNE 0-3 Hull City (20/1/2026)
The game in which fans really started to worry that the wheels were starting to come off after a strong first half of the season. There were hopes that narrow defeats to Wigan Athletic in the cup and Derby County over the previous fortnight were just blips, but things went from bad to worse over the 90 minutes on a cold January night at Deepdale. North End were bullied as former loanee Liam Millar opened the scoring, before Akin Famewo and Oli McBurnie extended the Tigers' lead. To top it all off, Milutin Osmajic was shown a straight red card for headbutting John Lundstram in added time. | CameraSport - Alex Dodd
3. Lowlight: Blackburn Rovers 1-0 PNE (20/02/2026)
You could include any of the three defeats to Blackburn, but this one stung the most; the only goal of the game, scored by Yuki Ohashi, came in the fifth minute of second half injury time and so it was a massive gut-punch, even if you felt it was coming. The chance to get revenge for the defeat in the reverse fixture had been missed, and North End looked so toothless, registering just three shots. | CameraSport - Harry McGuire
4. Lowlight: Bolton Wanderers 2-1 PNE (15/8/2026)
A dreadful way to start the current campaign. While there wasn't a huge amount of optimism heading into the game, this was seen as possibly one of the North End's easier away trips this season, but it was anything but. The hosts were dominant in the first half and were two goals up with 25 minutes played. PNE did improve in the second half and Jusef Erabi scored four minutes from time. This result started - or rather continued - the poor run of form that cost Heckingbottom his job. | CameraSport - Dave Howarth