Chilvers was told he would not play again until Christmas

Preston boss Alan Irvine is planning to be without injured defender Liam Chilvers until December.

Chilvers, 26, ruptured his Achilles tendon in the warm-up prior to the Championship game at Charlton in March.

"That [December] is still what we're talking about right now - albeit he's ahead of schedule," Irvine told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"We'll take our time with Liam - it's important we do that, if he breaks down you can be starting from scratch."

He added: "He's started to do some running now - he should be at the start of his pre-season but because of the type of injury he's got he needs a very long slow pre-season.

"I've been able to move the rest of the lads on very quickly and work them hard, but the physios won't be able to move Liam on at that kind of rate because it's such a difficult injury to deal with and one where you can get it wrong and clearly we don't want that to happen."