Scott Parker's take on Burnley players not shaking hands with Milutin Osmajic and 3-0 loss to Preston

Burnley manager Scott Parker admitted his side were not at the races in Saturday’s 3-0 defeat to Preston North End.

The Lilywhites booked their place in the FA Cup final for the first time since 1966 thanks to goals from Robbie Brady, Milutin Osmajic and Will Keane. Former Claret, Brady, whipped a wonderful first half free-kick home to break the deadlock.

Osmajic doubled North End’s advantage one minute before the break and Keane secured passage into the last eight with a close range, first time finish in the second half. Parker, who made nine changes on the day, had little complaints with the outcome.

“We fell a little bit short today,” said Parker. “No denying that. A tough tie. We just fell short really in the basics. The foundation of this game, what was needed, we just came up a little bit short. We were second best to a lot of things really.

“I thought before their goal, the tie is where it is... it's always going to be nip and tuck. I thought we took the sting out of that really a little bit. Obviously, the goal comes from nowhere. Great strike from a free kick. We couldn't build any sort of momentum; we couldn't build anything into the game.

“There's a certain game that they play, a man-for-man game. It is always going to look a little bit sticky or certainly, isn't going to look like the game hat sometimes we want it to be due to the fact of how they play - which is effective in certain times.”

“I made the conscious decision to take him out of that situation.”

At the centre of attention on the afternoon was Parker’s decision to leave out midfielder Hannibal Mejbri - who made racism allegations against PNE striker Osmajic a fortnight ago. Those have been ‘strongly refuted’ by the Montenegrin and the FA’s investigation is ongoing.

Hannibal was not included in the squad and Burnley’s players opted against shaking the Preston striker’s hand pre-match. Parker had his say on both of those things in his post-match press conference.

“There was an opportunity to play him,” said Parker. “I made the conscious decision to take him out of that situation. I didn't want to put Hannibal in a situation today which is still up in the air because that's what it is - and he's coming to an away stadium, maybe against a player that the allegations are against.

“And the fan base; people are making minds up whether it was or whether it wasn't. My decision, which took me a long time and a lot of thinking about, was that I just wanted to protect Hannibal. The fact that Hannibal's had to miss out today makes me sad.

“That was constantly the decision I kept throwing back and forth in my head: Why is that? Is that the right thing to do? But fundamentally, I came to the decision just to protect him really. The players made that (handshake decision) as a group.

“The players decided that was a stance they were going to take. I was fully supportive of that when I found out. If that's the decision this group wanted to take out of support, and an understanding of more clarity and understanding of the situation, that's the decision they made.”

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