Former Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland and Ipswich Town striker on mission to rescue career at Championship club

Connor Wickham’s last senior match came in Wednesday colours on the last day of the 2019/20 season – a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Middlesbrough – some 388 days ago.

It came at the end of a third stint with the club, one he hoped would ignite a restart for life at Premier League Crystal Palace. It wasn’t, with injury-plagued Wickham failing to make a first team appearance last season and managing only two run-outs for the club’s under-23s.

After a trial period with Preston North End, though, Wickham has signed on at Deepdale and has his fresh start having left Palace on a free in the summer. He will hope to breathe new life into a middling start to the season for the Lancashire side.

The Ipswich Town product and former England youth starlet – who was the subject of a £9m move to Sunderland in 2011 – played 30 times for the Owls across those three loan spells, scoring 11 times and claiming three assists.

Wickham said: “It’s taken a little bit longer than I would have liked, having been around when the boys have been involved in games and watching their preparation and not being able to prepare the same way as what they are.

“But I’m just happy that it’s done now and I can kind of put that behind me and start to look to the future now.

“I was thankful that the club gave me the opportunity to come in in the first place and train and get my fitness back.

“I sat down and had a good few chats with the manager over the course of the three weeks and I feel like we’re going to be in a good place mutually that I’ve got to prove and show the right to get in the team, but hopefully it’s going to work out well.”

Wickham joins fellow former Owls loanee Izzy Brown at Preston, though Brown will be out for several months having suffered a serious injury in pre-season.