Football
Ali McCann: ‘Excitement’ Building at Preston Under Paul Heckingbottom
Preston's Ali McCann reveals excitement within the squad under new manager Paul Heckingbottom. The team is aiming to challenge for Championship play-off spots, building on recent performances.
Image Credits: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images
Preston midfielder Ali McCann has revealed the club are “really excited” to see what they can achieve under new boss Paul Heckingbottom.
Northern Ireland international McCann has impressed for the Lilywhites this season in what proved to be a shaky start for the club after former boss Ryan Lowe sensationally quit after just one game of the new campaign.
Paul Heckingbottom: The Right Fit
Former Sheffield United, Leeds United, Barnsley and Hibernian boss Heckingbottom has been brought in to firstly, steady the ship, then hopefully guide the club to be challenging in the play-offs come the end of the season.
“It was a shock at the start of the season, you never expect a manager to be sacked so early,” McCann told SportsBoom.com.
“But unfortunately, football works like that sometimes and we just had to deal with it.”
“Thankfully it got sorted pretty quick and the new manager has been really good since he’s come in.”
“He’s really clear with his ideas and think his style really suits the team, so it bodes well going forward.”
“I think all the players are really excited to see what comes from it.”
“It wasn’t ideal the first couple of weeks, but we’ve got it all sorted now.”
“Since the international break our performances have been really positive.”
We’ve showed a lot of character, if we can build on that it will be huge for us going forward.
Ali McCann
A History of Promotions
Heckingbottom famously guided the Tykes to promotion to the Championship in the 2015-16 season – and in the same year also helped the club win the Football League Trophy with a memorable final win at Wembley.
Arguably, the 47-year-old’s crowning glory was winning promotion to the Premier League with the Blades in a momentous 2022-23 season.
“With the quality we’ve got in the squad we need to be up and around the play-off spots, challenging,” stressed McCann.
“Whether or not we’ll finish as high as that, who knows, but we need to be up there considering how many good players we have.”
“If we match that with consistency then there’s no reason why we can’t be there and there around it this season.”
“It’s a tough league at this level, there’s no easy games and so many teams are capable of getting into the play-offs.”
“And then you’ve got the volume of games as well, so it’s really difficult.”
But it’s one of them, if you put a run of good performances together then you can find yourself challenging up in and about it.
Ali McCann
“It’s all about putting that consistency together, but you know that nobody is going to roll over in this league.”
“I think consistency is where we really let ourselves down at stages last year.”
“We lost a couple, won a couple, but we never really built that consistency that we were looking for.”
“But if we can build it this season then there’s no reason why we can’t me up there.”
Learning from Last Season’s Inconsistencies
The Lilywhites were in the play-off mix in the final month of the season, but frustratingly conspired to lose their last five league games in a row as their play-off hopes ended with a whimper.
“Throughout the year we’d go on good runs and then we’d lose a good three or four games in a row, so we sort of managed that and had to solidify to drag ourselves out of a bad run to put us back on the front foot,” reflected McCann.
“But, like I’ve said, with the quality we’ve got we’ve got more than enough to win a few games this season. It’s about delivering that week-in, week-out.”
“Personally, I don’t set targets, I just see how it goes game by game, but I’m just really happened to be back involved and contributing towards the team.”
“We fancy ourselves against anyone at home, we want to be aggressive this season and get on the front foot as much as possible this season.”
Neil has been a journalist for longer than he'd care to remember, having written for national newspapers and respected publications for over 25 years. For the last three years he has worked freelance for BBC Sport, working on the production desk as a sub-editor and also as a writer, covering a whole range of sports.