Ben Pearson on why he left PNE for AFC Bournemouth

The move came about because the former no.4 refused to sign a new deal at the club and had made it clear that he would not be signing on, meaning that he could leave for a free transfer in the summer.

That meant PNE were keen to get some sort of fee for their star midfielder.

Pearson made 165 appearances for North End, scoring twice, having joined for just £300,000 from Manchester United in January 2016, with the Red Devils getting a cut of the transfer fee to the Cherries too.

It's not a move to the Premier League like many North End fans would have expected him to leave Deepdale for, but the top flight was in his mind as he chose the side currently sixth in the Championship.

"It's really exciting. It's happened quite fast in the past couple of days, it's flown by," Pearson told the AFC Bournemouth website.

"I always had in my head that I wanted to leave Preston as good a time as I've had there. I've been there for five years and I just think it's time to move on.

"To go to a club with this ambition, that has just come down from the Premier League, I thought it was a perfect fit for me.

"When you look at the players they've got, the style of football that they play, when we [Preston] played them we knew it was going to be a tough game earlier on in the season.

"When you're looking around the stadium everyone says what a nice place it is to live so everything just added up.

"My goal at some point is to play in the Premier League and I think being here gives me a good chance of that."

Pearson made little mention to PNE in his first interview as a Bournemouth player, though what he said may not go down too well.

North End will host the 26-year-old's new side on March 6.

He said: "This club, over the fast years being in the Premier League, it seems to be a massive club especially for me coming down here learning off better players, playing in a better team.

"It's just having that opportunity to play Premier League football which was a massive factor.

"The facilities here are great, when I was at Preston the first place we were at was really poor [Springfields] and then we've just moved into a new place there. It's a similar standard to that.

"I'm just looking forward to getting in on Monday with the rest of the lads and cracking on."

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