Ward who returned to the club earlier this week, has left after exercising a contract clause which allows him to leave if he gets an permanent offer from a club and Preston boss Craig Brown has allowed City to take Neal as a short term replacement.
Graham Hover said: "Unfortunately Gavin’s short return to the club has come to an end.
"When he signed on a month-by-month contract, we agreed that if someone else came in and offered him a year-long deal that he could go. "He’s joined Preston for a year which is just a case of unfortunate timing really – we didn’t expect anybody to come in 24 hours after he had signed for us.
"We totally understand Gavin’s situation and we hope he has a good season with Preston who have helped us out by allowing us to take a third year scholar on work experience.
"He will join the squad in Germany and in the meantime we will be on the lookout for a long term stand-in ‘keeper with some experience. "
Meanwhile, Coventry City Ladies have been given the go-ahead to use Coventry Sphinx FC for the WPL Northern Division games this season,following an inspection by an FA Representative yesterday.