Peter Ridsdale as Preston North End manager talks exclusively about transfers, Tom Cannon, ‘abuse’ and more

Preston North End manager Peter Ridsdale has assessed the club’s summer transfer activity in an exclusive interview with the Lancashire Post. The Lilywhites signed eight new players at the end of the transfer window, with Milutin Osmajic and Liam Millar arriving a day after the deadline following the arrests of Will Keane, Mads Frokjaer, Duane Holmes, Calvin Ramsay, Layton Stewart and Jack Whatmough.

 

How do you feel going into this summer?

“Well, I’ve been doing this for a long time and I approach every summer vacation with confidence that we have a plan and we know what we’re trying to do,” Ridsdale said. “Obviously it’s not as simple as doing what you want, because everyone is looking for the same players and we have a lot of challenges. Honestly, I was shocked at the abuse I received – right from the start. At Bamber Bridge, I was abused, told to block all incoming transfers, even though I had made all the transfers. Now we sit here, with 8 players arriving – 6 official players and 2 loan players. I think this is probably the best time we’ve had in years.

“So the abuse shocked me – the personal messages were sent directly to me and some of the language, there were some messages I had kept and the abuse in that message was disgusting . I screenshotted it and told them to stop contacting me – he was someone I had been in contact with for several years and he was a PNE fan. I just wonder what he’s thinking today because you don’t do all that on the first day of the transfer window. The real evidence in the story is what happened at 11 o’clock last Friday, where we are in the league and whether we feel we are in better form – as of this season, from a team’s perspective – compared to last season. I think we.

“Look, I think there’s a little bit of a problem with my approach,” Ridsdale said. “Because many people have my phone number. I just read someone’s entire series and if you actually read this thread, start reading it all, on some level I hope they feel embarrassed. The frustration – which I felt – and the anger towards us, like we weren’t trying. At the end of the day, anyone in my position or Craig’s position only wants one thing: success. But we must do it within the prescribed financial limits.

“I’m happy to have someone ask me questions at any time, but when it comes to language used and personal abuse, I just don’t understand – unless they make them feel better, I lack of understanding. But that doesn’t make me do anything differently; we do what we believe is right and time will tell whether it is right or not. As you have seen in this transfer window, many players have been on trial by clubs. Overall, I think we got what we wanted.

“The only one we didn’t go to was Tom Cannon, and Tom didn’t go to one of the clubs they said was for him during the time we went. He went to Leicester, where he received his payment by parachute, and arrived last Thursday. I think our disappointment with Tom was that we made a deal very early on – it was an expensive loan. Everton accepted but