Paul Heckingbottom is plotting Unai Emery’s downfall. Dressed in a navy tracksuit overlooking the sunlit turf at Preston’s training complex, his handshake is warm and his eyes are cold as steel.
‘We don’t ever want to take a backward step against anyone,’ he says, for an opener. ‘If we spend all week working on stopping them, what are we playing for? Nil-nil and penalties? That’s not going to happen.’
It wouldn’t be the worst prediction, in fairness. Preston have had eight goalless draws this season and two penalty shootouts, both wins. Some fans would happily risk another. On Sunday, the only non-Premier League side left in the FA Cup host Aston Villa at Deepdale for their first quarter-final in this competition for 59 years.
Heckingbottom reached the semi-finals with Sheffield United in 2023, and he hopes to spring another surprise after overseeing just two losses at home all season – one to Bristol City, the other to Arsenal and Ethan Nwaneri’s candy cane of a left foot.
It won’t be easy. Top scorer Milutin Osmajic, who bit Blackburn’s Owen Beck in September and has recently been charged by the FA for allegedly racially abusing Burnley’s Hannibal Mejbri, is available. More on him later.
But Preston come into this one with multiple key absences due to players being cup-tied, suspended, or on the treatment table. The fact that Kaine Kesler-Hayden is ineligible to play against his parent club is a particular blow. Does that faze Heckingbottom? Not one jot.
Paul Heckingbottom is trying to mastermind an upset against Aston Villa in the FA Cup
The Preston boss took Sheffield United to the semi-finals in 2023 and thinks his team can stun Unai Emery’s side
North End knocked out Burnley with a 3-0 win in the last 16 and Deepdale has been a fortress
‘We know it’s doable,’ he says. ‘You look at the history of the FA Cup – Sheffield United two years ago, Coventry last year.
‘We’ve experienced Fulham and Arsenal this year (in the Carabao Cup) so we know what the level is.
‘We were very good against Fulham, a very tough, competitive game, and we had to defend really well at times, but we posed our own problems. Arsenal, in the first half they were exceptional. We performed really well in the second half and probably deserved a goal, and then Kai Havertz scored a fantastic header.’
Fearless – that’s Heckingbottom’s vision for Preston North End. Few teams have won more tackles, claimed the ball in the attacking third as often, or made more interceptions than them in the Championship. They’re top of the table for ill-discipline.
Don’t confuse his principles for naivety. Speaking to Mail Sport, Heckingbottom – ‘Hecky’ – insists on adaptability rather than a fixed philosophy. If Preston do reach the promised land under him, that feels a wise approach given Burnley and Southampton’s horror shows in the last two seasons.
‘With the options Unai has got to start and from the bench, we’ll automatically change our tactical setup for how he sets his team up,’ he says. ‘That’ll shift during the game.
‘You can have an idea when you’re playing Football Manager, but when you play Champions League quarter-finalists, you use your resources and what you’ve got.
‘If we were successful in this league and got promoted, we’d have to change a lot to be effective in the Premier League.’
Controversial striker Milutin Osmajic, who Heckingbottom calls ‘real coachable,’ is available
Heckingbottom is looking forward to pitting his wits against an elite coach in Emery
He says Preston can ‘100 per cent’ get promoted – even with a tight transfer purse
Ah, the p-word. It takes Heckingbottom 33 seconds to mention it, unprompted. For Preston fans, promotion is something of a mirage. One of the grand old clubs of the English game, and champions of the first two seasons of the Football League, they have not been in its top tier since 1961.
North End are in their 10th consecutive season in the Championship and have finished somewhere between seventh and 14th every time. This season they’re… 14th. Alex Neil went close, but you have to go back to the days of David Moyes, Billy Davies, and Alan Irvine in the 2000s for the last time they truly challenged, with four failed play-off campaigns.
What, then, convinced Heckingbottom that Preston could take the next step when he joined two games into this season after Ryan Lowe’s astonishing exit?
‘I knew I’d be able to have a big input,’ he says. ‘A lot of the time you come in as a head coach or manager and you have very little input into a lot of the decisions made.
‘Here, I felt like I could have a big influence along with the owners and Peter (Ridsdale, one of the directors). It’s not about how much you’ve got, it’s about how you use it.
‘I knew the group of players, so I envisaged what it would be like to work with them. I’ve been really pleasantly surprised and reassured it was the right decision. I 100 per cent believe we can (get promoted).’
That’s easier said than done. Preston have one of the division’s tightest purses. Heckingbottom is resourceful – funds were scarce at Barnsley, and he got Sheffield United promoted after a late winter transfer embargo – but do the club’s ambitions match his?
Popular wing-back Kaine Kesler-Hayden is not eligible to play as Villa are his parent club
Preston knocked Fulham out of the Carabao Cup in a dramatic penalty shootout in September
But Heckingbottom suffered one of his two losses at Deepdale against Arsenal in October
‘Fans are always moaning (about spending),’ he says. ‘If you won the lottery tomorrow, would you give all your family’s money, millions away every year? I don’t think you would,’ he says.
‘So it’s easily said but when it is your money that you’re giving away with no guarantee of getting it back, I don’t think too many people who are saying it would actually do it themselves.
‘I’m pleased with the business we’ve done. This summer is going to be a big one, whether that’s loan players or our own players.’
Preston’s record signing is Osmajic for £2.1million from Cadiz in the summer of 2023, and Heckingbottom thinks his 13-goal firebrand Montenegrin forward has a high ceiling.
‘He works his socks off and I see him as a real coachable lad,’ he says. ‘He’s got very good attributes, is a real goal threat, and we’ve been happy with the level he’s performed at.’
Heckingbottom is understandably reluctant to delve into Osmajic’s controversies but does offer one reassuring admission: ‘It’s not part of your tactics to send someone out to bite someone.’ Maybe it’s a gentleman’s game after all.
He is guarded about his time at Sheffield United, where he took the permanent job in 2021, got promoted in 2023, and was sacked in December that year with the Blades 20th in the Premier League. Any disappointments?
‘No,’ he says. ‘There’s always reasons and things that happen. You guys and fans get to find out very little of it. I loved my time there.
Heckingbottom scored for Darlington against Villa in the FA Cup third round back in 1999
‘It’s not about how much you’ve got, it’s about how you use it,’ says Heckingbottom on spending in the transfer market
He still has a point to prove in the Premier League after being sacked by Sheffield United
Heckingbottom visited Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen to study after the Blades sacked him
‘I went back a few weeks ago in the opposition dugout. It would’ve been nice to go back as a fan first and see the people who you don’t get a chance to say goodbye to when you leave.
‘Listen, everybody wants to work in the Premier League. Everybody across the world. It’s a tough place to get to and even tougher to stay there.’
Heckingbottom took a few months off after leaving Bramall Lane to develop himself, spending time with a pair of Champions League managers tipped as future Manchester City bosses, Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen and Michel at Girona.
‘I enjoy studying teams who are overachieving,’ he says. ‘I went out to watch them train and take in some live games. When you’re not working, you have a lot more time to improve your knowledge and come up with new ideas.’
Heckingbottom, a Barnsley boy born of a miner and a teacher, has often been an underdog in his career. In 1999, he scored against Villa in the FA Cup third round with fourth-tier Darlington – despite losing to Gillingham at the previous stage.
No, you did read that right. Manchester United, then the holders, had controversially dropped out of the Cup to play in the FIFA Club World Championship, and Darlington were drawn as lucky losers to progress.
Unfortunately, Villa dealt Heckingbottom and Co a second cup heartbreak in the space of three weeks. That adds extra fuel to the fire for Sunday.
Wembley, 219 miles away from Deepdale, feels agonisingly close.
