Josh Harrop joined Preston as a free agent in the summer and has revealed just how much he is enjoying his time with the club.

The former Manchester United player has featured a lot for Preston this season even though he wasn't one of Alex Neil's signings, although most of those have come from the bench. Just 11 of his 38 appearances were starts for the club. He only scored two goals as well as assisting another.

Preston performed well because they finished in seventh place even though this was Neil's first season in charge and he didn't even get a full pre-season to prepare due to coming in after Simon Grayson's departure to join Sunderland.

This is what Harrop had to say about his first season at the club, according to the official site: "He’s a good manger to work under. He’s got a lot to give the players, a lot of information and a lot of things to learn."

"It’ll be positive going into next season, all the lads are in good spirit even though we didn’t make the Play-Offs this season, we’ll be right at it next season."

"It’s been a season where it’s about improvement and a lot of learning. When you get to the stage when you’ve got to be winning games, you’ve got to do the right thing on the pitch."

The Verdict

There is a youthful core at Preston which Harrop is apart of, so keeping them together will be important because they are developing together as Harrop said. The Lilywhites can benefit in the long-term because it gives them a strong spine to the squad for the long-term while also being able to benefit financially if these players really develop such as Jordan Hugill who joined West Ham in January.

It will have took some adjusting for Harrop after being used to Manchester United, which can be seen in his statistics, but he has a promising future and he's likely to have a bigger role in the team next season. Neil is the ideal manager to coach this young core and get the best out of players such as Harrop.