Seven up as Pringle and Robbo join PNE

Seven incoming deals will have been done at Deepdale this summer when the pair sign on the dotted line.

Pringle is joining from Fulham for an undisclosed fee, with PNE fans probably best remembering the midfielder from his time at Rotherham.

He was a key figure for the Millers when they beat North End in the 2013/14 League One play-off semi-finals.

As for Robinson, he needs no introduction after having three loan spells with the Lilywhites in the past two campaigns.

The 21-year-old becomes a fully-fledged Preston player now, joining permanently from Aston Villa.

North End have agreed training compensation with Villa, Robinson having been out of contract there but his age meaning the Midlands club were entitled to a fee.

He will be the third of the five loan players who finished last season with PNE, to make the move permanent.

Eoin Doyle did so last week, joining from Cardiff City, with Anders Lindegaard signing on Saturday after settling up the remainder of his contract at West Bromwich Albion.

The other players to have joined Preston this summer are Chris Maxwell, Simon Makienok and Tommy Spurr.

It is likely that North End will now pause to draw breath in the transfer market.

They made their move for Pringle late last week and he travelled up for talks on Thursday afternoon, before returning to London. The finer points of the deal were completed over the weekend, with the paperwork being registered today.

Newcastle-born Pringle was a trainee at West Bromwich before dropping into non-league football.

Derby brought him back into the full-time game in 2008, and he joined Rotherham three years later.

A year ago, he signed for Fulham and was a regular there in the first half of last season, before being loaned out to Ipswich.

PNE boss Simon Grayson says great efforts were made to get a lot of transfer business done early to enable the squad to do much of the pre-season programme together.

Grayson said: “We have tried to do things a little bit earlier than some other clubs because we wanted the new players to have the opportunity to settle in.

“I want the new lads to get to know the group and know how we do things here.

“We have only done deals for lads who we think are the right ones and are good enough for us – we have not just signed players for the sake of it and to get numbers in.

“All the lads have ticked the boxes in terms of what we wanted to do.

“I have made a big thing of keeping the nucleus of the squad together which did so well last season.

“We did very well but we now need to improve on every aspect of what we do in order to be even better this time.”