This summer has been one of somewhat concern for Preston North End fans, who have seen not much strengthening of a squad that finished 13th in the Championship last season after a late rally towards the end of the campaign.

The near four-year tenure of Alex Neil as manager came to an end back in March and replacing him in the dugout is his former assistant Frankie McAvoy, who guided PNE to five wins and two draws in eight matches in his caretaker reign.

That was enough to give the Scot the head coach role on a permanent basis, but he's mainly had to work with what he had - Sepp van den Berg has returned on loan, Liam Lindsay has penned a full-time deal following his temporary spell and the only two properly new additions have been Matthew Olosunde and Izzy Brown.

Brown though ruptured his achilles recently and will be out for most of the season, so the Lilywhites squad looks almost identical to how it did back in May, and there's still the glaringly obvious need for a new striker to hit double figures in terms of goals.

With the season opener against Hull City coming up this weekend, let's look at the best 11 McAvoy could possibly field right now.

Now that his arrival for the 2021-22 campaign has been confirmed, Iversen you assume will slot right into the starting 11 despite not spending any of pre-season with the club.

The Dane was excellent for North End in the second half of last season as he filled in for an injured Declan Rudd, and although the former Norwich man was having a decent season until being sidelined, he will no doubt have to make do with a place on the bench for the foreseeable future.

Iversen is quite clearly a special talent, especially with his shot-stopping skills, and he's the kind of goalkeeper that will win North End points on his own with his ability to keep the ball out of the back of the net.

After appearing twice for Leicester in pre-season, Iversen is a Lilywhite once again and he's going to be a fan favourite when supporters see him in action.

McAvoy has stated multiple times that he intends to keep the three centre-back system that worked so well at the back end of last season, and on the right-hand side looks likely to be Van den Berg.

After arriving on loan in February as part of the Ben Davies to Liverpool deal, the Dutch teenager for the most part played out of position at right-back or right-wing-back, but he was impressive for the most part and that led to an extension of the deal for a full season.

When his new loan deal was confirmed though, McAvoy revealed that Van den Berg will be utilised in his natural position this season - perhaps that is an order from Liverpool themselves but if he's as good in the middle as he is on the flank then North End fans should have nothing to worry about.

The central figure of PNE's back three has to be someone who is a big unit and can head crosses away, and if Patrick Bauer can prove he's back to full fitness following his long-term achilles injury then he may get back into the starting line-up at some point.

After a solid end to the 2020-21 campaign though, Lindsay will surely keep his place in McAvoy's 11 after securing a permanent exit from Stoke.

It didn't work out at the Potters for the 25-year-old but PNE have been able to pick him up on the cheap from the bet365 Stadium and if he can recapture the kind of performances that he showed for Barnsley a few years ago, then it will be a very shrewd move indeed.

Another player who has probably split opinion over the years, Hughes has been a lot more solid since transitioning from a left-back to a left-sided centre-half under McAvoy.

It's a position he's played for previous clubs so it isn't a surprise that the Welshman seems comfy there, and he seems to make less mistakes as well than when he was playing in a back four.

Hughes is comfortable on the ball which is what McAvoy wants of his two centre-backs either side of the middle one, and he's likely going to be competing with young Josh Earl for this spot - he's a versatile player who can also provide competition at left-wing-back as well.

North End lost their first-choice right-back in January when Darnell Fisher departed for Middlesbrough, and for the rest of the season it was mainly Sepp van den Berg who played there, with Alan Browne and even Tom Barkhuizen sometimes filling in as McAvoy shifted to wing-backs.

Matthew Olosunde from Rotherham United was brought in as the permanent solution six months after Fisher left, but he's suffering from a knock on the achilles that occurred against St. Johnstone and he's not certain to be fit for the first game of the season.

Even though he probably wants to be in a more advanced role, Barkhuizen may have to fill in at right-wing-back here and for the first few matches of the season, and he'd probably be preferred to a natural full-back in Joe Rafferty who has never quite convinced at Championship level.

The deep-lying midfield duo for PNE seems pretty cut and dry, starting with the club's Player of the Season for 2020-21.

It took a while for Ledson to secure himself a spot in the starting line-up at Deepdale and he was mainly seen as an understudy to Ben Pearson for his first two seasons.

However with Pearson absent for a lot of the first half of 2020-21 and then exiting the club to join Bournemouth, Ledson stepped up and became the leading man in the engine room.

You get the feeling that it's going to be a big upcoming campaign for Ledson - he perhaps still needs to tone down some of his tackles as he's still flying into some that could be classed as borderline dangerous but he's a naturally aggressive player and provides the bite that PNE need.

Partnering Ledson will be North End's marquee January 2021 signing in Whiteman, who perhaps didn't quite show his true talents after he arrived from Doncaster Rovers.

Alex Neil deployed the 25-year-old as a like-for-like Ben Pearson replacement, sitting Whiteman in-front of the centre-backs and not giving him much creative freedom.

Under McAvoy though things have been different and Whiteman was able to burst through the middle of the pitch to head home his first goal in a 3-0 victory over Derby County in April, and he fired in a beauty of a goal against St. Johnstone in pre-season, adding penalties against Celtic and an unnamed outfit that PNE defeated 5-0 on Saturday.

There's hope there that Whiteman could perhaps become a midfield talisman, but most of all he will hopefully provide a creative threat from deep and supply North End's forwards on the counter attack.

Providing he can stay fit for a whole season, Cunningham can prove himself to be one of the Championship's top left-backs but it's a case of whether the Irishman can stay off the treatment table.

Since departing Deepdale for Cardiff City in 2018, Cunningham hasn't found much in the way of game-time, playing just 24 times in two-and-a-half years for the Bluebirds and Blackburn Rovers and he's struggled with different injuries in that time period.

A return to Deepdale may have given him a new lease of life though, although he did miss a full month of action late last season due to - you guessed it - an injury.

Cunningham has Josh Earl to cover for him if needed but the Ireland international will be looking to find the form that secured him a move to the Premier League from PNE three years ago.

The attacking midfield position may be the most competitive on the whole pitch for PNE as you've got three players who will consider it to be their strongest role.

There's Brad Potts who seems to be a favourite of McAvoy's, and also Daniel Johnson who impressed for Jamaica in the Gold Cup this summer but failed to hit the heights of his 2019-20 form last season, and for the duration of McAvoy's caretaker spell he was on the sidelines.

Then there is PNE skipper Alan Browne, who in the 2018-19 season scored 12 goals as an attacking midfielder and if he can find that kind of form again he could be a real asset this season.

Browne has undergone a minor hip operation recently which should make him a lot sharper and even though he could be seen as a utility man who can play at wing-back or deeper in midfield, he's at his most effective when bursting into the opposition area.

It's no secret that North End really need some attacking reinforcements due to the lack of goals they scored last season, but one player that will probably be a guaranteed selection is Evans.

Eyebrows were raised when Alex Neil decided to bring in a striker who was the wrong side of 30 years old and had only scored five goals for League One Fleetwood Town in the first half of the 2020-21 season, but Evans showcased his abilities as a target man and brought others into play.

Evans scored five times in 21 outings and that was a better record than most in the team - the Wales international was also rewarded for his efforts with a two-year contract after initially penning a deal until the end of the campaign.

Whilst Evans' place is probably nailed on, the same can't be said for whoever his striker partner will be.

Emil Riis partnered Evans in PNE's final pre-season game and the line-up used looked to be something like what McAvoy may go with against the Tigers on Saturday, so it wouldn't be a surprise if the Danish forward got the nod.

However he scored just twice last season for the Lilywhites and it would be difficult to leave the club's top scorer of last season out in Scott Sinclair, despite not being a natural out-and-out striker.

McAvoy's winger-less system shouldn't mean that Sinclair doesn't feature as much as he can be just as dangerous through the middle if given the opportunity, and he should be the one to start the season next to Evans, with the likes of Riis and Sean Maguire waiting in the wings to capitalise if the goals don't come.