Preston North End fan pundit makes Sean Maguire transfer prediction | OneFootball

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk’ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

After five years as a Preston North End player, Sean Maguire could be close to coming to the end of his time at Deepdale.

The Republic of Ireland international arrived in the summer of 2017 after a prolific stint in the top flight of his native country with Cork City, and he managed to hit double figures for the Lilywhites in his first season despite being hit by injury.

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However things started to go downhill in the summer of 2018, when a serious hamstring injury saw him lose most of the pace he had and in turn his scoring record dwindled.

In his 120 league games since the start of the 2018-19 campaign, Maguire has only scored 12 times and he is now fourth-choice striker behind Cameron Archer, Emil Riis and Ched Evans.

With just one year left on his contract going into this summer and a gradual decrease in effectiveness on the pitch, Maguire has been tipped to depart North End this summer by FLW’s PNE fan pundit Sam Weeden.

“I definitely think in general there’s going to be a big overhaul in the squad, a lot of players in the past who may have done enough for new contracts like Maguire and Josh Harrop I don’t think that will cut it anymore,” Sam said.

“There’s going to be a big clearout and I think Sean Maguire will be part of that.

“It’s no secret that when he first came to North End he had that big injury but he still managed 10 goals and there was a lot of real hope for him, especially considering how little we picked him up for from Cork.

“It’s just not really worked out for Maguire, he scored one goal this season and has played a fair few matches, he got a lot of consecutive starts in the unbeaten run we had under Frankie McAvoy, but at the end of the day his goal return isn’t enough – therefore I can’t see him being kept around.

“We knocked a loan request from Cardiff City back in January but I think this summer if we have chance to bring people in to replace him I wouldn’t be surprised to see him leave at all – permanently or on loan.”

With a lack of goals in recent years, it was a surprise to see Maguire’s contract extended in the summer of 2020.

He does bring a decent amount of link-up play to the North End team, however his main reason for arriving at Deepdale nearly five years ago was for his pace and finding the back of the net – and he’s not utilised either of those assets recently.

North End want to progress in the near future and be challenging for promotion to the Premier League, and Ryan Lowe will need better players to do just that.

Maguire will likely be a casualty of the rebuild and if that happens, he’ll depart with the best wishes of PNE fans.