Preston North End playing a waiting game with their trio of transfer-listed players

Josh Harrop, Tom Bayliss and Matthew Olosunde all have 12 months remaining on their contracts but don’t feature in Ryan Lowe’s plans for the 2022/23 campaign.

When the retained list was published in May, North End announced they would listen to offers for the trio who between them made only four PNE appearances last season.

Their agents have since been trying to generate interest but these are still quite early days in respect of getting moves sorted out.

Things should start to speed up over the next couple of weeks as clubs return to pre-season training and the transfer market grinds into life – the summer transfer window opens officially on Friday.

North End are realistic that the trio might not generate big transfer fees bearing in mind the state of the market in the EFL.

However, deals could be done where sell-on clauses or payments linked to appearances are part of the package, potentially earning some funds further down the line.

Olosunde was the only one of the three to spend the full season with North End, having arrived on a Bosman from Rotherham at the end of June last year.

An Achilles tendon injury which flared-up in pre-season training was to delay the American full-back’s first-team debut until December 4, that coming at Blackburn in Frankie McAvoy’s last game in charge.

He suffered a groin injury towards the end of that match and returned to the squad in January where his one appearance under Lowe came as a first-half substitute at Swansea.

The 24-year-old, who was at Manchester United before joining Rotherham, wasn’t registered in the 25-man squad once the January transfer window closed.

Bayliss went on loan to Wigan Athletic at the end of August, his one PNE appearance of the season being as a substitute in the Carabao Cup victory at Morecambe.

The midfielder got a League One title-winners medal with Latics but his game time was limited, with just six starts in league action.

Harrop was loaned out to Fleetwood in January but tore a hamstring muscle just a few minutes into his debut and didn’t return to action until April when he played his part helping Town stay in League One.

Look back to PNE’s friendly clash with Malaga 17 years ago