Preston North End striker Ched Evans opens up on coaching journey as he prepares for retirement

The 34-year-old is not looking to hang us his boots any time soon, but he’s already making steps to make sure he’s ready when it is time to call it a day on the pitch.

His plan is instead to move to the touchline and become and a coach and he’s already been taking some sessions down at Springfields with PNE’s academy, working alongside Nick Harrison and Andy Fensome – as well as the odd session with his own teammates at Euxton.

He said: “I've done my B Licence, I've applied for my A licence and I'm waiting to hear back on that. It's definitely a part of the game which I enjoy and whilst I'm still playing it's just adding another tool to the toolbox before the inevitable happens and I retire.

“I went down to Springfields and got some help from the staff down there, it was really helpful. We took a few sessions with the lads, I've taken a session here (Euxton) but with the A licence I will probably have to do more than what I've done. I'm taking notice of what goes on outside of training now and it's something that I enjoy. I want to build on that.”

Evans has hundreds of career appearances in the football league and over a hundred goals behind him as he nears the back end of his career but he won’t let his own ego get in the way of his learning.

It might be easy to assume that Evans will have plenty of his own ideas of how things should be done, and potentially disagree with some of the teaching, but that is not the case.

He said: “It would be ignorant to think you know everything and I'm definitely not one of those people that think they know everything. Making a choice to go into coaching you have to be willing to listen to everybody's ideas.

"Inevitably it comes down to your ideas whether it works or not but listening to people and taking notice of what's going on is where I want to be and how I want to be going forwards.”