Preston North End can upgrade key position with deal for current Leicester City player | OneFootball

PNE turning to out-of-contract former loan star who would be a worthy replacement goalkeeper for Manchester United target set to leave on a free

It has been recently reported by Football League World that Preston North End have agreed a deal for the return of former loan star Daniel Iversen, whose contract with Leicester City expires this summer.

The 27-year-old previously made 71 appearances for the Lilywhites across two separate loan spells between January 2021 and the summer of 2022. In that time, Iversen earned the love of the PNE faithful, keeping 23 clean sheets and winning the club’s Player of the Season award in 2021/22.

Since his move back to Leicester, Iversen has been sorely underutilised in both the Championship and Premier League. His last consistent stretch of matches he featured regularly in came during a six-month loan to Stoke City in early 2024. He was a key figure in Stoke’s survival in the Championship during that season.

Our sources have confirmed he is now set to return to Deepdale.

Woodman’s Preston arrival coincided with Iversen exit

When Iversen departed Deepdale in 2022, he and Declan Rudd were the only two senior goalkeepers in the active squad.

Rudd had announced his retirement towards the end of that season, meaning PNE were without a shot-stopper in any capacity going into the summer transfer window.

His replacement was Fredie Woodman, from Newcastle United. The former Magpie arrived for an undisclosed fee, and over 138 games in all competitions, he went on to keep 44 clean sheets for Preston.

Iversen's PNE record was arguably better than Woodman's

Like Iversen, Woodman also won the club’s Player of the Season award for his performances throughout 2022/23, and it’s true that the Lilywhites kept more clean sheets with Woodman than they did with Iversen during those respective seasons.

However, this stat is helped by Preston’s freak start to the ‘22/23 campaign, where they didn’t concede for the first seven matches, and also failed to score in five of those.

In every other season that Woodman has been the starting stopper for PNE, he has failed to eclipse Iversen’s total of 13 shutouts during his one full campaign in the North West.

Woodman managed 10 in each season between the summers of 2022 and 2024, which is actually only one more than Iversen’s half-season between January and June 2021.

Outgoing goalkeeper was subject to mixed reviews by North End fans

This transfer news comes at a crucial time for Paul Heckingbottom's side, given that the club have announced a raft of first-team departures this past weekend with their retained list. Woodman was one of the biggest names confirmed to be leaving the club for free, alongside striker Emil Riis and midfielder Ryan Ledson.

Woodman’s departure comes at a time of heavy rumours regarding a potential move to Manchester United. Football Insider reported in April that the Red Devils are set to lose both Tom Heaton and Altay Bayindir at the end of the current season, and that Woodman would provide depth to Ruben Amorim’s squad.

After two seasons of fairly consistent performances, it was reported by Football League World that Preston fans were divided on the goalkeeper at the beginning of this most recent campaign. Fan pundit Darren Watson told FLW: “I think that he thinks in his head that he’s too safe because our second-choice keeper is not going to get any games.

“Woodman is the first option we’ve currently got at the moment, so he’s got in his mind that he’s going to play every game, and there's been a couple of mistakes by him, which led to us losing games or drawing games.”

This is a stark contrast to how fans saw Iversen during his time representing PNE. Perhaps most notably, following a stellar performance in a derby day victory over Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park, LancsLive picked up on several Preston fan comments about their then-starter between the sticks, with one stating that he “has the best reflexes since (Jordan) Pickford came to Deepdale”.

The current England number one was on loan at Preston during the first half of the 2015/16 season and was similarly popular with fans during his time there.

For Iversen to be earning comparisons by the fans to a man who, by the time of these comments, had represented the Three Lions at one World Cup and one European Championship is quite the compliment.

Permanent transfer for Iversen would continue promising Preston pattern

Whether or not this fan support for Iversen would have withered over time like it seemed to do with Woodman is currently unknowable. One key point to make is that, throughout 2024/25, the Dane has not played one competitive match for Leicester. He has only sat on the bench for 14 of a possible 41 matches.

It is likely that this serious lack of playing time may worry some fans about his arrival, and probable immediate return to first team football. However, PNE’s track record of getting the most from permanent arrivals of former loan players is hard to ignore.

Upon their return to the Championship in 2015/16, former captain Paul Gallagher’s loan deal (also from Leicester) was made permanent, and “Gally” would go on to play 313 games in total before retiring as a club legend.

Similarly, the aforementioned Rudd was a consistent starter between the sticks for nearly three full years between 2018 and 2021 after an initial loan deal in 2013 from Norwich City.

That being considered, it’s easy to say that, injuries aside, Rudd provided more legitimate competition to Iversen’s place in the starting line-up during across a year and a half than Cornell ever did to Woodman for three straight seasons.

Perhaps PNE’s biggest success story from a decade in the second tier was that of Callum Robinson – a free transfer from Aston Villa in 2016 that became a reported £8m sale to Sheffield United in 2019.

After sitting through such a gruesome end to this Championship campaign, and hearing of several stars heading for pastures new with the release of the retained list, for a beloved former loanee to make the permanent move to Deepdale to replace a divisive departing player ought to be music to Preston fans’ ears.