[themaclad]

Preston North End are delighted to announce Will Keane has signed a contract extension which will keep him at Deepdale until 2026.

The striker, who joined the club in July 2023, was North End’s top goalscorer during the previous Sky Bet Championship campaign and opened his account for this season last weekend.

Due to be out of contract in the summer of 2025, the 31-year-old has now extended his deal by a further year.

Will said: “I’m absolutely delighted. Discussions have been ongoing for a while so to get it over the line is really pleasing.

“I’m really pleased to extend my stay and hopefully I can just crack on and keep contributing to the team.

“I’ve really enjoyed my time here and was really keen to extend that and keep progressing.

“We’ve had a good lift with the new manager coming in and there’s a great buzz about the place. Hopefully we’ll keep improving, keep progressing, and I want to be part of that.”

Will spent the first half of the 2015/16 season on loan at Deepdale from Manchester United, scoring a memorable goal in a derby day victory over Burnley.



After joining the club permanently last summer, the striker went on to score 13 league goals during the 2023/24 campaign, as well as assisting a further three.

The Republic of Ireland international scored his first goal of the current season in the recent 1-0 victory over Luton Town, which was the opening match of the Paul Heckingbottom era.

The manager said: “Conversations have been bubbling on in the past and my opinion is that he’s an important part of the squad. I don’t see that changing in the next 12 months.

“Will wants to stay. He doesn’t want to leave and he’s really happy here so I think it’s a really good bit of business, firstly to get him in initially and then to keep him here a little bit longer.

“I know about all the speculation, but this has been ongoing anyway so we’ve always been relaxed because we’ve known what outcome we all want.”