Preston part company with Lowe after he asked to leave

Preston North End say the club and Ryan Lowe have parted company after just one match of the Championship season after the manager asked to leave.

Lowe’s departure follows Friday night’s 2-0 defeat at home by Sheffield United.

The 45-year-old had been in charge at Deepdale since December 2021 when he joined from Plymouth.

But despite finishing in 13th, 12th and 10th, he has left after discussions with the club’s board on Sunday.

Club director Peter Ridsdale said it was Lowe who prompted those talks after chatting with his family over the weekend.

“Ryan’s position was absolutely clear,” Ridsdale told BBC Radio Lancashire.

“He told me he wanted a break, a change. We’ve accepted that and shaken hands and we agreed on what basis he goes.

“The fact is he’s gone, we didn’t initiate it and we have to decide whatever next.”

Lowe’s assistant Mike Marsh has been placed in interim charge for this week’s matches against Sunderland in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday and away to Swansea City on Saturday.

The club say arrangements over what happens after those games will be announced next week.

Shortly after news of his departure broke on Monday morning, Lowe issued his own statement saying he believed leaving Deepdale was the right call.

“I think now is the right time for the club to go in a different direction,” he said.

“I’ve always stressed since I walked through the door that if I can’t take the club any further, I’d leave it to someone else and that’s what I’m doing.

“I’m leaving the club in a good place with a fantastic squad, and I just wish the football club and everyone associated with it all the best in the future.”

Lowe’s stock was high when he arrived in Lancashire from Argyle over two and a half years ago to replace Scot Frankie McAvoy.

The Liverpool-born manager had won promotion with both Bury and Plymouth out of League Two and Argyle were riding high in League One when he left to take up the challenge at Preston.

They were 18th in the Championship at the time and an impressive return of 39 points from his 25 games led them up to 13th.

He improved on that by one place in the next season, eventually finishing six points shy of the top six.

However, that campaign was marked by a serious lack of goals. North End managed just 45 across the season.

Five of their first six games finished 0-0, while it took them until the 13th game to score more than once in a match.

However, last season Preston were revelling in their best start for 120 years as they sat top of the Championship with six wins and a draw from their opening seven games.

North End have never played in the Premier League and there was a big dose of realism handed out by a run of seven games without a win.

That included comprehensive defeats by three of the division’s top five in Leicester City, Ipswich Town and West Bromwich Albion.

A seven-game unbeaten stretch in the New Year reignited their play-off hopes, and as late as 13 April they were eighth.

But a brutal finish to the season saw them lose the last five – admittedly playing four of the top six – as they slipped down to 10th.

While Lowe had pushed them up the league in terms of position, the gap to the play-offs had actually grown from six points in 2022-23 to 10 last term.

After a quiet summer in the transfer market with three players coming in – Iceland midfielder Stefan Teitur Thordarson and a pair of loans in Sam Greenwood and Kaine Kessler-Hayden – Preston began this campaign with a whimper against the Blades.

BBC Radio Lancashire sports editor Andy Bayes:

It would appear that Ryan Lowe made the decision that he couldn’t take North End further following Friday night’s opening-day defeat by Sheffield United.

His tenure at Deepdale had its ups and downs, without ever really being anywhere in the middle.

They began last season with six wins out of their first seven games, but ended it with five straight defeats without scoring in any of them, still securing a top-10 spot but never really looking like serious play-off contenders.

Supporters criticised his reluctance to move away from playing three centre-backs, and some of his comments in the media perhaps didn’t help his relationship with them.

The big question now is, can the next man in the hot seat improve on back-to-back top-half finishes and take this famous old club back to the top flight for the first time since 1961.