Preston North End set to have talented striker available for visit to Derby County

The 20-year-old striker, on loan from Aston Villa, had to pull out of the England Under-20 squad earlier this week due to illness.

However, Archer is on the mend and there’s even a chance he could re-join the England set-up after the weekend for the second game of their schedule against Germany.

The Under-20s are playing in Poland today before returning to the UK to face Germany at Colchester United’s ground on Tuesday.

If he didn’t end up making that game, Archer would definitely be fit and available for North End’s clash with Derby County at Pride Park a week tomorrow (April 2).

Archer has scored five goals in 12 appearances for North End since arriving on loan in January, his latest being in the 2-1 win over AFC Bournemouth on March 5.

Not surprisingly, minds have already turned to next season and the chances of borrowing the highly-rated forward again.

While there is talk of Villa wanting to run the rule over him in pre-season and of interest from other clubs in country and abroad, PNE have looked after Archer well and would be able to provide him with regular first-team game time.

Ryan Lowe and his Villa counterpart Steven Gerrard have a good relationship which helped Preston get him in the first place.

On the international front, Sepp van den Berg and Ali McCann could be in action later today.

Van den Berg is with the Netherlands Under-21s for their European Championship qualifier against Bulgaria this evening.

Midfielder McCann will be in the Northern Ireland squad for the friendly against Luxembourg and in line for his 11th senior international cap.

Tomorrow it is the turn of Alan Browne and Daniel Iversen on the international stage.

PNE skipper Browne is in the Republic of Ireland squad for a friendly against Belgium in Dublin, with Iversen having been called-up by Denmark for their friendly with the Netherlands.

All of them have games on Tuesday too but will be back at Euxton on Thursday ahead of the Derby game.

Key points from Chris Kirchner’s impromptu Q&A