Where are Preston North End’s 3 most underwhelming signings from the last 10 years now?

Preston North End don’t often splash the cash any more like they perhaps used to with the odd £1 million-plus signing, and they’re known for being very frugal in the transfer market under their current ownership.

But who are the club’s three most underwhelming additions in the last 10 years – the ones that many expected a lot of, but they failed to deliver on a consistent basis? Let’s take a look at them and see where they are now…

Where is Scott Sinclair now?

When Sinclair arrived at North End in January 2020, he was coming off the back of multiple Scottish Premiership title wins for Celtic and plenty of experience in European competition – he’d scored 60 goals in 160 matches going into his final half a season north of the border, so there was plenty of expectation when he signed for PNE.

The forward never quite lived up to the expectations though at Deepdale – he scored three times in 18 outings in his debut half season and despite top scoring for the club in 2020-21 with nine goals, he was still hit-and-miss throughout the season.

In his final season at PNE, Sinclair went 23 Championship matches – albeit just six of them were starts – without scoring for the club, and he was understandably released last summer having failed to live up to the hype.

Sinclair appears to have gotten somewhat of his mojo back having returned to his first ever club Bristol Rovers in October, with his performances in League One earning him a contract extension until 2024.

Stevie May

With North End desperate for more firepower in 2015 when they had been promoted from League One, they made a deadline day swoop in September for both Eoin Doyle on loan and Stevie May on a permanent deal from Sheffield Wednesday.

PNE paid around £800,000 for a striker who was prolific in the Scottish Premiership for St. Johnstone before he scored seven times in 39 outings in the Championship for Sheffield Wednesday, so there was hope that May would rekindle his scoring form from north of the border.

That never happened though – May played just eight times without scoring before a season-ending knee injury and eventually returned 14 months later, but he played just four times in the 2016-17 season although did net his first for the club with a wonder-strike against Rotherham.

Alex Neil didn’t see a place for May when he arrived in 2017 and sold him to Aberdeen, where he spent two seasons before returning to St. Johnstone where he remains now at the age of 30, where two of his last three seasons have ended him reaching double figures in all competitions for goals.

Perhaps it’s harsh to label May underwhelming due to his injury, but he didn’t show much before and after that to think he would be a success.

Where is Josh Harrop now?

In the summer of 2017, it was thought that North End had landed somewhat of a coup when tying Harrop down to a four-year contract – he’d scored on his Premier League debut for Manchester United just a couple of months prior so big things were expected.

Harrop did show flashes of quality, but they weren’t often enough, and a serious knee injury in September 2018 was the start of the attacking midfielder’s decline.

To his credit he did come back in 2019-20 and play 36 times in all competitions, but Harrop never really made too much of an impact and having played just eight times in 2020-21, he was loaned out to Ipswich Town of League One in January 2021 in what proved to be an unremarkable loan stint.

He has a similar short spell at Fleetwood the season after and still with time left on his contract, Harrop agreed to a mutual termination last September, which following that he joined Northampton Town of League Two three months later.

Harrop played just twice for the Cobblers though in cameos before being released at the end of the season – who knows where the ex-Man Utd man heads next, but it’s certainly been a wasted career so far for the 27-year-old.