Exclusive: Burton Albion set to sign Josh Earl
Preston North End defender Josh Earl is set to join League One Burton Albion on loan for the rest of the season, Football Insider can exclusively reveal.
The news of his departure comes after this site revealed Preston had re-signed 29-year-old left-back Greg Cunningham on a temporary deal.
A recruitment source has told Football Insider that the Championship club have given Earl, 22, the green light to join Burton Albion following Cunningham’s arrival.
A Preston academy graduate, Earl has been with the North West club since he was nine years old.
The left-back, who can also be deployed as a centre-half, has made 40 appearances for North End since making his breakthrough in 2017-18.
Preston manager Alex Neil gave the defender a glowing reference last month: “He’s good on the ball, he’s got nice feet, he can run and gather pace, has good size, physicality.”
Earl had been used predominantly as back-up for first-choice Preston left-back Andrew Hughes this season.
But with Cunningham now on the books at Deepdale, Earl will be allowed to go and gain first-team experience elsewhere.
This will be his third League One loan spell having spent the first half of the 2019-20 campaign at Bolton and the second-half at Ipswich Town.
Burton are struggling at the foot of the third-tier, having won just three times this season.
The Staffordshire outfit have conceded 51 goals in that time, more than any other team in England’s top four divisions.
Newly-appointed manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink — who is in his second stretch as Albion boss after taking charge between 2014 and 2015 — will be desperate for Earl to raise the standard of his backline.
In other news, Preston have opened talks to sign an Everton starlet amid competition from fellow Championship club Blackburn Rovers.