Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom charged by FA after sending off at Hull City

Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom has been charged with misconduct by the FA.

The Lilywhites were beaten 2-1 by fellow strugglers Hull City on Easter Monday. After the match, the PNE boss was shown a red card by referee Thomas Bramall. As per an FA Spokesperson, Heckingbottom is alleged to have ‘acted in an improper manner and /or used abusive and/or insulting words towards a match official around the 55th minute and following the conclusion of the fixture, which led to his dismissal.

North End’s boss has until Tuesday, 29 April to respond to the charge. It remains to be seen whether Heckingbottom is banned for the final day match at Bristol City, against whom PNE will be looking to secure their Championship status. Last time the Preston manager was charged by the FA, it took two-and-a-half weeks for his touchline ban to be confirmed.

In the 50th minute of the game against the Tigers, the home side were awarded a controversial penalty which saw Joe Gelhardt equalise - before the Leeds United loan man later fired Hull ahead, again from the spot. Having been sent off, Heckingbottom was unable to speak post-match but voiced his frustration at the penalty call - given against Mads Frokjaer - in his next pre-match press conference.

He said: “I'm making a big thing about (costly decisions) today; I want to explain a lot. Because I don't want an excuse it’s ‘get on with it, win the next game’. But like I said, imagine the questions, it's a different narrative, a different thing we're speaking about. It’s wrong that the players... Mads didn't give a penalty away at the weekend, yet he got one given against him.

“He gets injured later on and gets booked for telling the referee that he's down and injured, so all these little bits and pieces add up. There's no way that I'm going to allow people to say that the lads aren't fighting - it’s there. Not that we expect the help from elsewhere, but throughout this season we've been really, really on the wrong end of shocking decisions that have cost us a horrendous amount of points.”

The misconduct charge is Heckingbottom’s second of the season. In Preston’s 2-1 win at Watford in late January, the PNE manager was shown a red card in the tunnel at half-time. He was given a two-game touchline ban and fined £7,500.

Your next PNE read: Anger, worry, apathy - all warranted - but Preston North End's players just cannot be given up on now