Preston North End

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Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom spoke to BBC Radio Lancashire after their away win over Charlton Athletic.

"I'm really pleased It was hard earned and we had to show everything," he said. "The game started really fast and it was to and fro until they scored when I thought we got a lot more control of the game.

"We scored a good goal, made some really good opportunities and we came out in the second half and were the same again

"But whenever you don't get that two-goal margin you know you will have to defend,

"Charlton are at their most dangerous when they are direct so it made for a nervy finish and we had to defend the box.

"There were some really good challenges, headers and blocks we expected it and knew we had to do it. We stood up and were really good value."Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"I'm really pleased. It was hard earned and we had to show everything. The game started really fast and it was to and fro until they scored, when I thought we got a lot more control of the game.

"We scored a good goal, made some really good opportunities and we came out in the second half and were the same again

"But whenever you don't get that two-goal margin you know you will have to defend.

"Charlton are at their most dangerous when they are direct so it made for a nervy finish and we had to defend the box.

"There were some really good challenges, headers and blocks. We expected it and knew we had to do it. We stood up and were really good value."

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The EFL has announced the fixtures for the 2026-27 season will be published at midday on Thursday, 25 June.

The first-round draws for the Carabao Cup and the Vertu Trophy will be made on the same day.

The new season will kick off on the weekend of August 7-9 with the first round of the Carabao Cup, and the opening fixtures in the Championship, League One and League Two will follow a week later on 14-16 August.

The first round of the Vertu Trophy will be played in the week commencing 21 September.

Social media has made the abuse of footballers "the norm", according to Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom.

Lancashire Police are investigating after Preston's Thierry Small was racially abused in an Instagram post following the own goal he scored in Monday's 1-1 draw with QPR in the Championship.

"Any sort of abuse is something I really don't like, but people are big and brave on social media," Heckingbottom told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"We know the police are involved and it's someone not connected to us, who lives out of the country and is known to have done it before, targeting players at other clubs so it looks like he's a professional idiot rather than just a one-off idiot."

Preston released a statement , externalcondemning the abuse aimed at Small but Heckingbottom said the problem is a difficult one to deal with.

"Social media plays a part in it because it becomes a norm - you see some of the stuff that's written on there is evil, so to cross that line to become racist, it's smaller because people are doing it all the time and it's just promoting it.

"It's a safe haven and nothing happens, we'll never see this guy, he won't do it to our faces.

"If it's someone at the stadium the police can deal with it, but to hide behind an online profile, it's just something we have to make sure Thierry knows we've got his back and the fans will show their love for him at the next game."

Preston are currently 14th in the Championship table and visit Charlton Athletic on Saturday (15:00 BST).

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Preston North End have released a statement condemning racist abuse directed at left-back Thierry Small following the club's 1-1 draw with Queens Park Rangers on Monday.

North End stated that they had discovered "deplorable comments of a racist nature" aimed at Small on a club Instagram post.

Small, 21, scored an own goal in the 82nd minute of the match and the abuse has been reported to Lancashire Police.

"The club continues to reiterate its stance against racism and condemns any behaviour of this nature," the statement said., external

"There is no place for such abhorrent and frankly disgusting and discriminatory language in football nor society

"If and when the individual responsible is identified, they will be banned from Deepdale for life."

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Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom says he was frustrated with the way his side drew 2-2 at Leicester City.

Mistakes from his side were to blame for both of Leicester's goals.

Patson Daka took advantage of Andrew Moran's weak backpass to put the Foxes in front early on before Pol Valentin's poor touch allowed Daka the chance to blast in the second.

The point sees Preston drop to 15th place in the Championship.

"We created all four goals," he told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"Regardless of the position they've got some real good individual players and we defended our box well.

"They got in behind us once where Dan (Iversen) makes that save where we get things wrong, apart from that it's shots from the edge of the box.

"For us to give them two goals the way we did, to just get that point is really, really frustrating."

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Championship clubs spent just over £69.5m on agents fees over the past 12 months according to figures released by the Football Association,, external an increase of £6m on the previous year.

The figures cover the period from February 2025 with Ipswich Town the top spenders, paying £11.7m having spent the first three months of the accounting period in the Premier League.

Southampton (£8.3m) and Leicester (£5.8m), who were relegated alongside Ipswich are the second and third-highest payers on the list.

Troubled Sheffield Wednesday were the most frugal when dealing with agents, spending £534,559.

Wrexham come in sixth on the list with an outlay of £3.6m while current Championship leaders Coventry spent just short of £1.5m.

Championship agents' fee spending, external

• Ipswich - £11,738,920

• Southampton - £8,381,358

• Leicester City - £5,866,587

• Sheffield United - £5,005,498

• Norwich - £4,020,206

• Wrexham - £3,660,584

• Swansea - £3,088,645

• Middlesbrough - £2,900,314

• Bristol City - £2,774,990

• Hull City - £2,450,431

• Stoke City - £2,088,886

• Birmingham City - £1,996,502

• Millwall - £1,982,348

• Preston North End - £1,831,233

• QPR - £1,829,036

• Watford - £1,612,833

• Coventry - £1,497,990

• Derby - £1,409,507

• West Brom - £1,346,030

• Oxford - £1,235,536

• Charlton - £904,698

• Portsmouth - £831,818

• Blackburn - £676,980

• Sheffield Wednesday - £534,559

Fresh from scoring for Ghana during the international break, Leicester will hope Abdul Fatawu and Jordan Ayew can transfer that form into goals for their club as they continue to battle to avoid a second successive relegation.

Four defeats from their past five games means Preston's play-off challenge has dissolved and they start Good Friday's match (15:00 BST) 11 points short of the top six.

• Leicester have won their past two home league games against Preston, having lost four in a row against them beforehand. They last won three consecutively between 1937 and 1950.

• Following their 2-1 win in August, Preston are looking to complete the league double over Leicester for the first time since 1957-58.

• Leicester have won just one of their past 13 league games (D5 L7), beating Bristol City 2-0 at home last month.

• Following a 3-1 win against Stoke last time out, Preston are looking to win consecutive league games for the first time since January (vs Sheffield Wednesday and Bristol City).

• Only Sheffield Wednesday (3) have kept fewer clean sheets than Leicester (5) in the Championship this season. However, two of the Foxes' five have come in their past three games.

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Preston North End forward Milutin Osmajic scored twice for Montenegro on Tuesday but could not help the side to a win during their 3-2 friendly loss to Slovenia.

The 26-year-old opened the scoring in the 20th minute before Swansea's Zan Vipotnik equalised in the 41st minute.

Omajic was able to peg back the lead before the half-time whistle but Slovenia scored twice - including another for the Championship's top-scorer Vipotnik - to take the win in the second half.

The two goals bring Osmajic's senior international goal tally to seven, with the North End man scoring in each of his past three games for Montenegro.

Preston boss Paul Heckingbottom praised his side's character after they came back to beat Stoke and end their seven-game winless run in the Championship.

Heckingbottom feared it would be more pain for Preston when Stoke took an early lead and was delighted with the way his side responded with Alfie Devine scoring twice and Milutin Osmajic once.

He told BBC Radio Lancashire: "Listen, I've been saying it's about the wins. No-one is interested in what you say when you're not winning, you know it's about the win.

"We have played well in previous games and not got over the line and today we started really well again, and then their first pass, their first cross, they score.

"We had that against Norwich, where we started the better team, made a mistake and they go one up. Kenny McLean puts one in the top corner from a free-kick.

"We were the dominant team, but we couldn't get the goal, couldn't get the points. Today we did, so, yeah, that will make everyone feel better, definitely.

"The performance was excellent from start to finish and we turned the game round from that difficult start, and it wasn't just me thinking 'here we go again', so, yeah, it's great."

Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom has called for "realism" amongst fans amid a difficult spell at the club.

The Lilywhites were fourth in the Championship table in January, but are now 17th after winning just one of their past 12 matches.

And while Heckingbottom understands the fans' anger, he also feels the expectations were raised too high during the first half of the season.

"If we are a team who are bottom three budget and bottom three in terms of net spend, why should we be expected to beat the teams that aren't?" the 48-year-old told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"I've always said it's not about money and it's not. If we look at the teams at the bottom, some of them have huge wage bills. But we need to make sure we are going in the right direction about that.

"There's other teams still fighting, there is other teams spending, there is other teams still chasing what we are chasing. We have no right to be any better than the other teams we are playing against."

Striker Milutin Osmajic has trained and will be available for Friday evening's game against Stoke City (20:00 GMT) after spending their defeat by Norwich City on the bench.

But both midfielder Ali McCann (ankle) and defender Lewis Gibson (shoulder) will need to wait until after the international break to make their respective returns.

"We were not ruling him [McCann] out because he was feeling really positive but he's not made it," Heckingbottom added.

"Gibbo [Gibson] has trained but I think we rule him out. He's not been strong enough in his arm."

Listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds

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