Preston North End's divisional rivals could land Serie A goalkeeper, Aston Villa face battle for 17-goal assassin

The Lilywhites head into the game off the back of a confident 3-0 Carabao Cup win over Mansfield, and will look to take that positive momentum into their clash against the Royals, and put the opening day 4-1 hammering by Hull City far behind them.

When the two sides last faced each other, back in January, the two sides played out a goalless draw. However, their last meeting at the Madjeski stadium saw Preston storm to an impressive 3-0 win, with goals from Scott Sinclair, Emil Riis and Brad Potts securing three points for their side.

Speaking after his side's first-round cup win over Mansfield, Preston boss Frankie McAvoy said: “I thought Scotty (Sinclair) was excellent and it was great to see him score twice.

“In training on Monday we had done a lot of work to get Scotty and Sean Maguire linking up in and around the penalty box. Before he scored the first goal, Scotty had a chance from Sean playing him in.

“His goal came from them linking up again, so that was a big plus for us. They hadn’t been available for Hull because they were isolating, so this was a good chance for them to play.

“I put Emil (Riis) on knowing we needed a second goal and I knew he would give us that spark we needed.”

We’ve gathered the best of today’s transfer speculation below…