Preston boss clears up confusion as player starts despite being charged for BITING

Preston boss Paul Heckingbottom vowed not to punish Milutin Osmajic again despite his FA charge for biting.

The Montenegrin has been charged by the FA for an incident that occurred during his side’s clash with local rivals Blackburn. After an incident that saw Beck sent off for kicking for kicking out at Duane Holmes, Osmajic appeared to bite the former in the back.

The FA announced that he had been charged in the aftermath but the Preston star has continued to play and has found some decent form. He scored twice on Wednesday during a 3-0 victory over Watford at Deepdale.

And Heckingbottom has now explained why he has remained in the side. Speaking after Wednesday’s success, he said: “He scored goals for us in the cup (a hat-trick in a 5-0 Carabao Cup second-round win at Harrogate), played well again against Fulham (in the next round) and deserved his opportunity.

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“I’m not going to punish him twice, me twice, the club twice, the fans twice. We’ll wait and see what the governing body does, and how we deal with that, and that process is ongoing.

“He deserved his chance. We don’t know the outcome, but he’s probably not going to be available at the weekend (when Preston go to Burnley ).

“It would have been the same decision anyway, but with the quick turnaround and the probability he will be missing, it just means it makes sense to not put anyone else in the firing line, and luckily it was the right call tonight.”

Heckingbottom added: “I think we handle it well with him. There’s discussions we have internally, which I would never share with you, you can understand that. We deal with that our way, my way.

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“And then I’m not going to punish, like I said, everyone twice. It’s up to the governing body to do that. We’ll have our own thing internal but apart from that the FA will decide.”

While Osmajic has played over recent days, Preston could be set to lose the forward to a ban. Club director Peter Ridsdale had confirmed that the striker had accepted the charge.

He said: "He has accepted the charge that the FA put to him which was that he was seen to bite the opposing player in the game against Blackburn Rovers We've already indicated to the player what we're doing.

“I want to keep that obviously in-house but you can be assured that that's not something that we condone as a football club and we've taken appropriate action."

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