Peter Ridsdale has revealed Preston North End have held talks with Everton over Tom Cannon and hinted that the rising star could be heading back out on loan again next season.
Cannon spent the second half of the 2022-23 campaign with Preston. And the 20-year-old certainly made an impression as he scored eight goals in 21 appearances and won rave reviews for his performances for the Championship outfit.
And Preston have made it clear that they want Cannon, who was handed his Everton debut by then manager Frank Lampard before heading out on loan, back again for the 2023-24 season.
"Clearly we still hope that Tom Cannon is somebody we could get back," North End director Ridsdale said to BBC Radio Lancashire (via LancsLive). "He was a big hit with us last year.
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"We’ve already met with Everton twice. They had to wait to see where they finished in the season and we’ve met them since the season finished, but we are looking at others as well.
“My understanding, and I can’t speak on behalf of Everton, is that in an ideal world they’d prefer to loan him again. He’s only 20-year-old. I think he has a huge future ahead and I think they think he’ll play some part in the future, but probably, I can’t really speak for them, but I think they think that another loan would benefit him.
"But our initial reaction was just to say, ‘what is the situation with Tom Cannon and we’d like him at Preston North End. What’s the deal? Are you interested in selling or do you want to loan him?’, and we’re in their hands.
"Sometimes it’s difficult, just to reiterate, he’s not our player, and I’m talking about him today only because he was with us last season but clearly everybody would want him back here again and I believe he would like to come."
At the start of the season Cannon dominated academy defences for Everton's U21s, collecting goals against Manchester United, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain’s youth sides, and fired the team to the latter stages of the Papa John’s Trophy as he proved too much for senior Football League defences. Highlights included his stunning strike at Lincoln City in December.
Before that he had made his first-team debut in November, coming off the bench in the Carabao Cup against Bournemouth then doing the same against the same opposition in the Premier League days later. He impressed further on the Blues' trip to Australia, scoring in the penalty shoot-out win over Celtic and then during the 5-1 rout of Western Sydney Wanderers, after which he told the ECHO: "I back myself. When I'm in front of goal I back myself to score every time so I just need to keep going."
Cannon then trained with the first team and played the final minutes of the Boxing Day defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers before heading out on his first loan spell.
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