Preston North End captain Alan Browne has pleaded for the supporters to ‘keep supporting this team’ after a ‘decent’ season overall.
The comments came as Browne reflected on winning the Sir Tom Finney Player of the Year award – for the second time – with club media. Of course, the Irishman was also talking amid his ongoing contract situation. North End’s number eight sees his deal expire in the summer and has been given a ‘deadline’ to make a decision, with a contract offer on the table from Preston. And some of Browne’s words left PNE fans, on social media, fearing that he’ll be moving on this summer.
About his award, Browne remarked, “It’s amazing.” “I’ve always wanted to come out on top twice. I would have that at least, considering how long I’ve been here. Naturally, it matters greatly to the person who votes for it. I never gave it any thought until they asked for our votes, so I wasn’t prepared for it. However, I believe I’ve had a respectable season; that being said, I didn’t put in as much work in the previous years as I did knowing I really had to heading into the final year of my contract.
“I simply wanted to make sure I had a great finish to the season. We were unfortunately unable to accomplish it due to the results, but overall, I believe the players have played pretty well. All I’ve done is try to maintain a certain degree of consistency. You would be somewhat satisfied with the result going into the season. However, after such a strong start, there was undoubtedly a slump. You kind of assume that not many teams probably had that horrible of a run during that interim period when we had an astonishing run of results.
“Therefore, it puts you in a completely different scenario for us to do that, if we’d just picked up another couple of wins in that.” Although it is sad, it was always going to be a challenge with the league that was in place. We did everything we could to put ourselves back in a position where we could fight for something, and we gave it our all. In the end, we were unsuccessful. We get hit hard and at the wrong moments by injuries. We ultimately paid the price, I believe, because of the injuries that continued to occur as the season came to a finish and there were still many important games left.
Regarding the award going to the fans, Browne continued, “I feel truly honoured.”
However, it does mean a lot that so many people voted for you and that you won the prize. It means a lot to me, so I would want to express my sincere gratitude to them. They should maintain supporting this team because I think they have a lot of promise, and I genuinely appreciate it. Hopefully, the league won’t be as difficult as it was this year in the years to come. Hopefully, that action will be taken sooner rather than later because the club is simply too large to ignore.
