‘Not in a position to do that’ - Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom on wanting wingers and captaincy future
Clear demands from the PNE gaffer.
Paul Heckingbottom believes his Preston North End will be closer to the finished article once more wide players arrive.
PNE signed Delano Burgzorg on Friday and the versatile forward had a debut to remember on Saturday, assisting Jusef Erabi and scoring the winning penalty as they progressed past Huddersfield in a tense shootout.
However, Heckingbottom has reiterated that he needs more width in his squad to build a better, more competitive side.
He told the Lancashire Post: “You could see today, we’ve only got Pol and Andy as wing-backs, but they're full-backs playing wing-backs.
“I've spoken before about, if we get a lot of players, we can change and play with wingers. We're not in a position to do that and we're not in a position to play with different full-backs at the minute because if we play Odel and Hughesy there, they're more or less centre-backs playing there.
“We are behind in terms of our threat that we want to carry on the pitch, but where we have got options now is down the middle of the pitch.
“That's important and you've seen the value in that, not only last season when we had those options, but straight away now in the first competitive game with us able to change those two boys at the top and bring on fresh impetus.”
Lewis Gibson was given the captain’s armband on Saturday but he was sent off after 21 minutes following a professional foul on Ashley Fletcher.
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The role of club captain has been vacant since Ben Whiteman left to join Wrexham earlier this week, and Heckingbottom is yet to make a final decision on who steps up full-time.
“I've not made a decision yet,” Heckingbottom told the Lancashire Post, “I hadn’t seen [Gibson] doing it and I would have liked to see him do it a lot longer.
“He's done it before at other clubs, he's certainly got the personality, we’ve got a few in there.
“It’s something I've not really thought about until yesterday because we've got some really strong, good personalities in the building already who I think epitomise everything that I think is good about the club and has been good about the club for a long time.
“Likewise, in my time here, we've added one or two more, I'll include Lewis in that, who I also think have brought good, not just leadership, but good personality and reinforce what we think is strong about our group.”