Preston North End 3-0 Watford: Milutin Osmajic scores twice as Paul Heckingbottom's side cruise to home win

Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Preston North End and Watford at Deepdale on Wednesday night; Milutin Osmajic scores twice and Ali McCann adds a superb third as Paul Heckingbottom's men cruise to home win

Thursday 3 October 2024 09:09, UK

Milutin Osmajic scored twice as Preston moved out of the Sky Bet Championship relegation zone with a 3-0 win over Watford at Deepdale.

Osmajic, who last week was charged by the Football Association with allegedly biting an opponent, responded to being brought into the starting line-up by boss Paul Heckingbottom by putting the hosts ahead with a finish eight minutes after the break, before adding a second in the 65th minute.

A superb Ali McCann strike subsequently extended the advantage with 15 minutes remaining as Preston registered only their second win of the campaign and moved up a place to 21st in the table. Tom Cleverley's Watford stay eighth.

Heckingbottom made five changes to his line-up from Saturday's 3-1 loss at Millwall, which included handing a first league start of the season to Osmajic, six days on from the FA charging the Montenegro international.

While North End director Peter Ridsdale had said in a talkSPORT interview that Osmajic, who is alleged to have bitten Blackburn defender Owen Beck during the 0-0 draw with Rovers on September 22, had accepted the charge, with no further statement on the matter having come from the FA the 25-year-old remained available for selection.

Kwadwo Baah made his first league start for Watford, and the former Rochdale man was played in one vs one early on but could not finish the chance, with Freddie Woodman saving his shot.

Hornets goalkeeper Jonathan Bond punched away a Robbie Brady corner soon after, before Baah had another strike claimed by Woodman.

Osmajic then brought a fine one-handed stop out of Bond with a close-range header and further Preston pressure saw Brady and Kaine Kesler-Hayden send attempts off-target while Ben Whiteman had a low effort comfortably gathered.

Watford subsequently threatened in first-half stoppage time as Festy Ebosele rifled over the bar from a good position.

Osmajic saw another header kept out by Bond in the opening stages of the second half, before Moussa Sissoko saw his cleared off the line at the other end.

Moments later, Preston grabbed the lead when Kesler-Hayden laid the ball from the right to Osmajic, who slotted past Bond.

And after Watford substitute Ryan Andrews saw a powerful drive pushed away by Woodman, Osmajic doubled the hosts' advantage, finding the target as Jordan Storey drilled the ball across the visitors' box.

Vakoun Bayo, another man brought on by Cleverley, was presented with a great chance to pull a goal back but could only shoot wide, before McCann completed the scoring when he cracked a stunning shot past Bond after the ball come to him from Whiteman's free-kick.

The managers

Preston's Paul Heckingbottom:

"(I was) impressed with him. 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.

"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.

"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.

"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."

Watford's Tom Cleverley:

"We have to compete much better when we come away from home.

"If you don't win the battle, you have to absolutely dominate the ball, and we didn't do either. Everyone has to react and luckily we have a game (on Saturday against Middlesbrough at home) and a chance to react.

"We were playing within ourselves first half. We were in the game, but we didn't look like a team who were desperate to challenge at the business end of the table.

"We looked like a team that was happy to be a mid-table team, win a lot of games at home, do so so away from home. That's the disappointment for me - that we've come here with a mid-table mindset, and we work far too hard to be that."