Preston North End star set to miss Fulham and Blackburn Rovers games through injury
PNE face Fulham at home in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night
Preston North End striker Will Keane will not be rushed back from his hamstring issue, says manager Paul Heckingbottom.
The Lilywhites front man was a surprise absentee at Middlesbrough on Saturday, having started both league games under Heckingbottom so far. Keane, 31, signed a new contract with Preston in late August - amid speculation with West Brom and other Championship clubs.
But, he is definitely going to miss Tuesday’s third round cup clash with Fulham - and looks set to sit out of Sunday’s Lancashire derby against Blackburn Rovers too. Keane has been dealt a minor hamstring blow and Heckingbottom is in no mood to risk anything.
On his team news for Tuesday, he said: “Steffy (Thordarson) was just illness, so he is back. Will, we are not taking any risks with, so we will not include Will. It’s just a bit of common sense there, really. We have got a lot of players at the minute and, touch wood, a decent squad in terms of numbers to pick from.
“There are usually times in a season where you are stretched and need to take more risks. But, at this moment we don’t. So, we are not going to with Will. It’s just a really low grade hamstring injury. He has not trained yet. We are keeping him out of the way and letting him do all his stuff in a controlled way.”
Liam Lindsay will also be back from his one match suspension. But, in the absence of Keane, another start could well be in the offing for Milutin Osmajic - who hit a hat-trick at Harrogate Town in round two and won Player of the Round.
“Yeah, the thing is we were in the door for 10 days and had three games,” said Heckingbottom. “We could not do much and then Milly was one of the ones that went away. Robbie was, Ali was when we’d just got him back fit.
“Stef was a little bit different, because we got work in with him in between the games. Even so, it would’ve been good to have him. But yeah, we’d just got in the door and those four left us when we were working. It’s nice to have them back and see what they are about and work with those lads.”
Another opportunity may come the way of summer signing Jeppe Okkels, who made his first league start of the season on Saturday - but was taken off at half-time. That was due to a tactical tweak Heckingbottom felt needed making and he certainly isn’t concerned about the 25-year-old.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Heckingbottom. “The players probably have to get used to me doing that. You can’t wait for things and it was the way the game was. The fact was we could get Josh (Bowler) out there one-v-one, that was the space and we weren’t as productive as we needed to be on the left - even though we had the extra body.
“So yeah, it was just a case of that being the change we felt was needed. You have to be able to do that and the fact that we’ll probably see it happen a lot more times, the players will understand it’s just something we do. It’s not against Jeppe’s performance, just what the team needed.”