Preston North End manager Graham Westley gives his reaction to the deadline day capture of Stuart Beavon
“I am working with winners on a day in day out basis, it is like feeding the garden, you put a lot of seeds into the lawn and you are waiting for them all to grow.
“In every case when I have recruited this summer I have signed good players but they are also good people and I am comfortable at where I am at.
“You want good footballers but you also want good people, people who want to work hard, work together, be honest with one another and want to play for the football club.
“To have his quality and Beavon’s strike rate and his prolific nature in front of goal gives us so much variation.
“I wanted to bring pace to the Club and we brought in David Amoo and Jeffrey Monakana and up front we wanted to bring in some extra quality with the signing of Lee Trundle, and he will back to fitness in not too long
“We went into the close season knowing we didn’t have any balance, on the left hand side we have got Scott Laird, David Buchanan, Lee Holmes, Joel Byrom and Shane Cansdell-Sherriff so we have got a lot of left footed players to join Will Hayhurst.
“We have made significant progress this summer and the jigsaw is coming together bit my bit and we are in a much better position now.
The new team has assembled nicely, but Westley was keen to stress that it wasn’t just their abilities on the pitch that he looked for in each player.
During the summer months, North End have gone through a transitional period with major surgery to the playing staff at the Club.
“Those ambitious players are the ones who can cut it and they are the ones I try to bring to the football club and the ones I know will serve us well.”
“I have always had my eye on him and I know him as a player, he is now 28 and he has got a lot of experience behind him but he has still got a lot of ambition in front of him.
“Stuart is at the right age, he has come up through the ranks and he played non-league football when I first started watching him and I tried to bring him to Rushden in my earlier days as a manager.
“He has also got a fantastic ability in front of goal and he has got a poachers instinct and he knows where the back of the net is and he is quite happy to take responsibility in front of goal which is great.
“Beavon is one of those types of players, he will work his socks off for this football club and I am sure the fans will see that once he starts to play and seeing that tremendous work ethic come out of him.
He continued: “I love his character, his work rate and what he does for the team both in and out of possession, everyone will start to know by now I don’t just go for players who can do it with the ball, I like players who can do it with and without the ball.
Beavon is a player the manager is all too familiar with, as he went on to talk about what qualities he will bring to the squad plus his attempts to sign him before his time as boss at North End.
“We have paid the right money for the player and that was always going to be important if we were going to get the deal done.”
“We managed to get to where we wanted to get too, we haven’t overpaid for the player but we have had to bide our time to get to where we are.
“He led the line alone at times last season; he has got a terrific work rate as well as a prolific rate in front of goal.
“He was our number one choice. He proved himself last year at this level and I am a great believer in signing people who have proved themselves at this level.
“It has been a long wait and we have turned a lot of other options down in order to get to where we are, but patience has been a virtue in this particular instance,” the gaffer told PNE.Com
North End’s interest in the prolific centre forward has been much publicised, and the boss is happy they have shown patience to get their man.
Preston North End manager Graham Westley’s wait to sign his number of target finally came to fruition minutes before the transfer window slammed shut as Wycombe striker Stuart Beavon signed on the dotted line at Deepdale.