Championship side Preston North End are set to hold talks with former Norwich City manager Alex Neil this weekend, according to Saturday’s print edition of The Sun.
Preston are currently looking for a new manager after Simon Grayson departed for Sunderland and have identified a possible replacement quite quickly. Grayson only left the club on Thursday but Preston are already holding talks with a candidate.
Grayson had been in charge at Preston since 2013 and led the club back to the Championship at the end of the 2014-15 season. He has since kept the club in the league, with Preston finishing in a solid 11th place last season. Grayson had a win percentage of 44.3% during his time at Preston.
Grayson’s potential replacement, Alex Neil, has been out of work since he left Norwich City in March of this year. First appointed in January 2015, Neil won 17 out of his first 25 games and led Norwich to the Premier League via the play-offs. However, the club came straight back down and failed to hit the same heights in the Championship last season.
With Norwich 8th in the league in March and nine points outside of the play-off places, Neil had his contract terminated. Neil finished with a win percentage of 41.7%.
[interaction id=”59576237f2d4938713c3813a”]Previous to managing Norwich, Neil was manager of Hamilton Academical in his native Scotland. He led the club back to the Scottish Premier League in his first full season in charge before leaving to come to England after almost two years in charge of the club.
Alex Neil is a manager who has won promotion from the Championship before, which is definitely a positive for Preston fans should he be appointed. However, at 36, he is still a young manager in the early stages of his career and is not as experienced as Grayson.
