Ex-Sheffield Wednesday man suffers hammer blow just weeks after joining new club – could be unregistered

Wickham, who became a free agent after leaving Crystal Palace over the summer, finally put pen to paper on a deal elsewhere earlier this month after securing a short-term deal with The Lilywhites until mid-January.

Now though, after making just two appearances for North End, his manager has said that they may look to unregister him if the specialists confirm that he is indeed out for the remainder of this year.

Frankie McAvoy told the media last week, "We will see how Connor is once we get the specialists' opinion back on him and recommendations - we will see what happens there.

"We just need to wait and see what comes back and if that does (that he’s out for the rest of 2021), we will probably look to try and do that… We'd need to try and see if that was an option.

"You need to look for a bit of dispensation, and our guys would deal with that.”

Wickham made his Preston debut in the 1-1 draw with West Bromwich Albion earlier this month, but then had to be taken off with a hamstring injury just seven minutes into his first start for the club as they beat Cheltenham Town 4-1 in the Carabao Cup last week.

The 28-year-old had two loan spells with Wednesday in 2013, and came back for a third time in 2020 – scoring 11 goals in 30 games in total.

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