How Preston North End need to react to Milutin Osmajic situation despite £15m talk | OneFootball

Preston North End have had a busy transfer window to this point, but they now need to prioritise keeping star forward Osmajic

Preston North End have had a busy transfer window to this point. They have made 11 new signings, eight of whom are permanent imports for Paul Heckingbottom’s side.

Their latest arrival is Aston Villa winger Lewis Dobbin on loan - the 22-year-old even scored seven minutes into his debut against Wrexham in the EFL Cup last Tuesday.

Whilst that is hopefully a sign of things to come for the PNE faithful, it has become clear where their main source of goals will come from in 2025/26 – Montenegrin forward Milutin Osmajic.

The club’s number 28 is their first-choice striker, was their top scorer in all competitions in 2024/25 with 15, and has already put away three goals in as many league games to help the Lilywhites stay undefeated in the Championship to this point.

With that in mind, it has been reported that there are a handful of clubs wanting to pry Osmajic away from Deepdale before the current transfer window closes, but Heckingbottom must not let that happen.

Milutin Osmajic has drawn international interest since cementing himself as PNE’s main attacking threat

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The 2024/25 Championship season was a real mixed bag for Milutin Osmajic. He truly announced himself as the main danger man for Preston, scoring 15 times in all competitions, including three to help the club to their first FA Cup quarter-final in 60 years.

However, early in the season, Osmajic faced an eight-match ban following a biting incident with Blackburn Rovers’ Owen Beck. Then, in March, he was involved in an altercation with Burnley’s Hannibal Mejbri where he was alleged to have directed racist comments at the midfielder.

Despite these controversies, one thing that the former Cadiz man does know how to do consistently is find the back of the net.

In PNE’s two most recent league games, he’s scored winners against recently relegated Leicester City and Ipswich Town, and this has caused a few heads to turn.

The first continental club floated to be vying for Osmajic’s services were Deportivo La Coruna, with Riazor reporting last week that the Segunda División side were looking to explore their options for reinforcements up top.

Since then, Sky Ports Italia’s Gianluca Di Marzio has disclosed that Serie A side US Cremonese are readying a bid of their own for the Montenegrin.

Preston must stand firm and keep Milutin Osmajic

As of right now, the LEP have reported that PNE have received no official bid for their star forward, who is thought to be valued by the outlet at approximately £15m.

If there were to be a sale of this magnitude to any other team, it will comfortably clear PNE’s previous record sale of Jordan Hugill to West Ham in 2018, for £10m.

It would prove to be a very hard offer to decline in that regard, but Paul Heckingbottom should absolutely be turning it down at this stage.

As has been nearly perfectly summed up recently by FLW’s PNE fan pundit Darren Watson: "I don’t think we are in a position to sell him with our obvious lack of threat in front of goal. Daniel Jebbison is injured, so we’ve got Osmajic and Michael Smith as our strike force. We really, really can’t afford to let anybody go at this present moment.

"We can’t afford his goals to go away because we don’t have another goal threat," – this sentiment especially is completely correct. Without Osmajic in the current PNE squad, their forward line does not look Championship ready.

Smith is their most experienced forward in this division, but at 33 and having never eclipsed 10 goals in a second-tier season, he is not a long-term solution. Jebbison is merely on loan at Deepdale, and his only previous Championship stint as a senior player was a disastrous six-month spell with Watford last season where he failed to score or assist.

Neither of PNE’s newest loanees in Dobbin or Tottenham’s Alfie Devine are out-and-out strikers who could fill the space left by Osmajic, and 32-year-old Will Keane looks destined to be relegated to being just a squad player in the coming campaign.

There simply is no one in the squad who can demonstrably do Osmajic’s job right now.

PNE’s asking price should not be a factor, with little time left to make the most of the money

FLW’s Darren Watson did concur when discussing the rumoured £15m price tag on the striker’s head that “if by some miracle a team comes in and offers £20m, then I think it’s a no-brainer, we have to let him go”.

Given that, in December 2024, the club’s owners confirmed in a statement on the website that the “annual contribution from the shareholder to cover all the club's operating losses is [approximately] £11m”, one player sale eclipsing that by any amount between £4m and £9m would be very hard to turn their noses up at.

And maybe a month ago, when right in the thick of the transfer window, it would’ve been a formality to accept such an offer. But now, with less than a week to go, there is simply no time for PNE to find a viable replacement, even if they have the money to make a statement signing.

They lost out on Wycombe Wanderers’ Richard Kone to Championship rivals QPR despite pitching their own bid.

Their speculated interest in Icelandic striker and son of Eidur, Andri Gudjohnsen, first reported by Alan Nixon, has dropped out of the headlines over the course of the last week.

Now, if they were to let Osmajic go, whatever replacement goal-getter they could muster would be seen as nothing short of a panic buy. For a team who scored the same number of goals in the league last season as bottom side Cardiff City, that is not a situation they would want to find themselves in.

And if a late purchase broke their existing transfer record – currently the Montenegrin’s arrival from Cadiz, for just over £2m – then it would sting all the more if it didn’t work out.

Preston know exactly what they’re getting from Osmajic this season regardless of any further controversies, and that is goals. He’s proven as much in the first few games, and doesn’t look like slowing down anytime soon.