Preston North End's first summer signings of the last decade - and where they are now

The first signing of the summer window always brings excitement for fans as their team’s transfer ambitions become reality.

As anticipation builds for another important pre-season for Preston North End, we take a look at the players who have marked the start of the club’s summer activity in recent years.

2025: Jordan Thompson

Thompson was the first of four signings PNE snapped up before the end of June after he left fellow Championship Stoke City, where he had played for five and a half years.

The Northern Ireland international had struggled with injury at times during his spell with the Potters and he was dealt a blow early in his North End career too, missing the first three months of the season. He was given a misdiagnosis after sustaining an ankle injury at the end of the 2024/25 season and required an operation.

Thompson made his debut for PNE away to Watford in November and has been commended for his no-nonsense approach to winning back possession and his on-the-ball play.

He started five of North End’s last eight games of the campaign. Next season will see him enter the second year of a two-year deal but there is an option to extend his stay for another 12 months.

2024: Sam Greenwood (loan)

After spending the previous campaign at Middlesbrough, Greenwood joined North End on loan from Leeds United. He captured fans’ attention early on and was praised for his work rate, but his form petered out after Christmas.

A brace in a 5-0 Carabao Cup Second Round win at Harrogate Town was followed up by five goals and three assists across the Championship season. He was shown a red card during a chaotic, goalless Lancashire derby against Blackburn Rovers in September of that season.

Reports this week indicate he is set to return to English football after a season at Polish side Pogon Szczecin, with Bristol City looking likeliest to sign him.

2023: Calvin Ramsay (loan)

PNE swiftly brought Ramsay in on loan from Liverpool and he was a highly-rated prospect at the time of his arrival, having enjoyed a breakout season at Aberdeen before he joined the Reds in 2022.

However, his first few months at both Liverpool and North End were marred by injuries. Ramsay was sidelined for the Reds in February 2023 until the end of the season, and so this loan represented a chance to rediscover his fitness as well as develop.

Unfortunately, he missed the first four months of PNE’s campaign with a knee injury. He made just two appearances after his recovery and was dealt another blow in December when he contracted Covid. He was recalled by Liverpool the following month.

Bolton brought him in on loan in the winter window of the same season and he made four appearances. Two brief spells at Wigan and Kilmarnock followed in 2024/25. Last season, Liverpool kept him in and around both their first team and under-21 squad, for whom he has impressed.

He made his first start for the Reds in a Carabao Cup fourth round loss versus Crystal Palace and was an unused substitute in a handful of their league games.

2022: Freddie Woodman

After a few games for Newcastle United in August 2021 and a frustrating loan spell at Bournemouth, a permanent move and regular football was ideal for Woodman, and he made an instant, record-breaking impression. He kept clean sheets in all of PNE’s opening seven league games, a run of form which helped him win the club’s Player of the Season award.

The following two seasons were shakier for Woodman but he still made crucial saves for North End and was a commanding goalkeeper. He landed a move to Liverpool last summer with the intention very much seeming like he would be third-choice, essentially a ‘training’ keeper, as has been seen with Scott Carson and Tom Heaton at their respective Manchester clubs.

However, four months after signing, Woodman made his debut for Liverpool - coincidentally alongside Ramsay - in that Carabao Cup game against Palace. He made his league debut in April this year in unexpected, undoubtedly daunting and yet almost dreamlike circumstances - in the Merseyside derby.

Giorgi Mamardashvili was forced off with injury, so on came substitute Woodman. He watched as Virgil van Dijk headed in a 100th-minute winner over Everton.

He made two league starts across the following fortnight, producing impressive saves in a 3-1 win over Crystal Palace, but Liverpool lost 3-2 to Manchester United eight days later in his last Reds appearance to date.

2021: Liam Lindsay

After an impressive five-month loan spell in the second half of what had been a challenging season for PNE, Lindsay became Frankie McAvoy’s first signing as head coach. Having made 13 appearances and scored two goals, it was hoped he could continue in a similar vein after his move became permanent, but he struggled for game time in his first full season. He picked up two red cards in quick succession in the latter stages of the campaign.

He featured more frequently in the next two seasons, with the arrivals of Bambo Diaby and Jack Whatmough adding pressure but Lindsay often rose to the challenge.

In the last two years, Lindsay has been seen as more of a squad player and his discipline has been a talking point again, but he has been crucial in some big games in recent months, bagging an unlikely brace at Sheffield United and putting in a strong display at Ipswich in January. He received his first international call-up for Scotland in October 2024 but did not play.

2020: Emil Riis

Time was running out for PNE to make a statement signing at the start of a season like no other, where the transfer window had started in August and ended in October.

After going goalless in two of their three opening league games, it was clear where North End needed to invest and, at the start of October, Emil Riis arrived from Danish side Randers.

It was the first time the club had signed someone from a team outside the UK and Ireland since fellow Scandinavian Simon Makienok from Palermo in 2016 and, as such, it was met with excitement by fans.

After a tough first season in English football, Riis came alive in the 2021/22 campaign and scored on 20 occasions, 16 of those coming in the league. Despite signing a new deal in October 2021, North End had to fight off interest from Middlesbrough the following summer.

The next two seasons brought a lot of disruption; Riis suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury which ruled him out for almost all of 2023. He scored 12 goals in his final season with North End, a tally he matched with Bristol City in the campaign just gone.

2019: Patrick Bauer

Weeks after scoring the header that won Charlton Athletic promotion back to the Championship, Bauer became PNE’s first summer signing of 2019. In the months that followed, whenever he returned to London to take on the likes of Millwall, QPR and his former side, he’d be serenaded by North End fans as they made their way across the capital and took over their train stations en masse.

Part of that famous chant was ‘we signed him on a free’ but ironically Bauer proved to be absolutely invaluable to North End at times, particularly in the first and third season of his six-year stay at Deepdale.

The 2020/21 campaign was cut short when he ruptured his ACL in December of that season, but he returned to action in summer 2021. He again impressed for large parts of the season but began to fall down the pecking order the following year.

Bauer rarely featured again for North End, only making two appearances in his final months, firstly against Fulham in the Carabao Cup, an hour into which he was forced off with an arm injury; his last game for PNE was in March 2025, as a substitute in a 1-1 draw at Sunderland. Bauer joined AFC Wimbledon last July and is already very popular with fans; he has played 30 times for the Dons.

2018: Ryan Ledson

North End moved as early as mid-May to secure Ledson’s signing, with the Everton academy graduate having made a very big impression for someone so young while at Oxford United, playing for the U’s for two seasons, the first of those under ex-PNE midfielder Michael Appleton.

He picked up a number of club awards at the age of 20 before moving to Deepdale for an undisclosed fee. Initially a squad player for the first two years, the best season of Ledson’s North End career was his third, in which he won both Players’ and Supporters’ Player of the Year, as well as opening his account for the club.

Ledson was popular amongst the fan base for more than just his quality on the pitch. Alongside the likes of captains and fellow midfielders Alan Browne and Ben Whiteman, he was one of the more outspoken in the media and always fronted up after tough results.

It was no surprise, therefore, that when Ledson’s PNE contract expired in 2025 and he moved to Huddersfield Town, he was soon named as their new club captain - a role he had often assumed on North End match days in the absences of the aforementioned skippers - replacing club legend Jonathan Hogg.

They fell short of achieving a playoff place last season despite expectations of a potential title challenge, however it was a strong campaign for Ledson personally. He scored seven goals - a career-best - including in three consecutive games and a strike from inside his own half in January.

2017: Sean Maguire

Maguire’s arrival at PNE was one met with plenty of optimism, in a period where PNE had enjoyed reasonable success in signing players from the League of Ireland - most notably, of course, Alan Browne. After the striker racked up an outstanding goal-scoring record for Cork City of 53 in 70 games, it was hoped that could translate to English football. For the first season, it certainly did.

His time at the club was hampered by fitness issues but after his initial setback at Deepdale, he came back better than ever, scoring twice to help PNE beat Bolton 3-1 away from home in March 2018 after recovering from a four-month hamstring injury. He ended the season in fine form, and scored 10 in 24 games across the campaign.

That was, however, his best season for the club by some distance. Whenever the Irishman looked to have found his feet again, he would suffer another frustrating knock or something longer-term, and he seemed less able to deliver on his best attributes of pace and quick reactions. He departed the club in January 2023 and signed for Coventry on a six-month deal, before joining Carlisle for a season.

He’s now back at Cork and is currently enjoying his best goal-scoring season since his return, scoring eight times in 16 games. He was the subject of interest from other LOI clubs but ‘The Rebel Army’ said he was not for sale, and he subsequently signed a new two-year deal in February.

2016: Chris Maxwell

After being ever-present for Fleetwood for two seasons, Maxwell swapped the Cod Army for the Gentry in 2016 and was favoured in goal for most of the season ahead of the vastly experienced, ex-Manchester United ‘keeper Anders Lindegaard. He was very much a ‘sweeper keeper’, giving North End fans a few heart-in-mouth moments, but fared well in his first season.

Declan Rudd re-joined PNE in 2017 and slowly became Alex Neil’s number-one goalkeeper, but Maxwell stepped up on occasion. In his last 18 months at North End, though, he is probably best remembered for what his enforced replacement did in November 2018.

Two bookable offences for Maxwell away to Ipswich Town meant that Paul Gallagher was forced to go in goal at Portman Road on 76 minutes - five after coming on and three after scoring - and produced a top-class save to deny Danny Rowe on the volley.

The goalkeeper was then loaned out to Charlton as he looked for regular football but did not play a single minute at The Valley. A later loan spell at Hibernian was cut short; he was recalled and released by North End so that he could facilitate a move to Blackpool.

Maxwell stayed with PNE’s arch-rivals for three years, during which time they returned to the second-tier. He rounded off his career with two seasons at Huddersfield before retiring in April 2025 due to a recurring hip injury.