Milutin Osmajic grabs winner for Preston against Leicester

Milutin Osmajic made it two goals in as many Sky Bet Championship matches as Preston beat Leicester 2-1 at Deepdale.

The 26-year-old scored a poacher’s goal in the 85th minute to seal a well-deserved victory against a Foxes team that looked well off the pace.

Teenager Jeremy Monga came off the bench to equalise for Leicester midway through the second half after Alfie Devine’s well-taken seventh-minute opener.

Leicester goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk horribly misread Pol Valentin’s ball forward, storming outside his box to try and clear the ball when Devine was always favourite to get there, allowing the North End midfielder to skip around him and squeeze an impressive effort into the net.

A buoyant home crowd were up for this battle against one of the Championship’s promotion hopefuls and Preston had two big chances to double their lead inside the first half an hour.

First Osmajic failed to sort his feet out with a clear sight of goal after an excellent pull back and work from Devine and then, just a minute later, Michael Smith headed Valentin’s enticing cross narrowly wide of the far corner.

Marti Cifuentes hauled off the ineffective Bilal El Khannouss for Patson Daka for the start of the second half but the tide was still very much with Preston and, early on in the second period, Ben Whiteman flashed a 20-yard free-kick narrowly wide of the far post.

In the 51st minute, Thierry Small stormed onto Andrew Hughes’ ball forward before rolling it across to Osmajic, who inexplicably steered the ball wide from point-blank range as he failed to properly connect.

Before the hour mark, Cifuentes rolled the dice again and the away following cheered sarcastically as Luke Thomas and Stephy Mavididi were replaced by Wout Faes and Monga, who was given a rousing reception from visiting fans and the teenager inevitably shone.

Massively against the run of play, Leicester should have equalised but Daniel Iversen made a superb reaction save to keep out Abdul Fatawu as James Justin’s fizzed ball across the six-yard box looked destined to be tapped home.

However, Monga, who was involved in the build-up to Fatawu’s chance, took the bull by the horns in the next phase of play, driving into the box before beating Iversen with a low 67th-minute strike at his near post.

Leicester were rejuvenated and thought they had snatched a point but they were dealt a killer blow late on as Osmajic positioned himself well to divert Small’s low cross into the net, sending the Deepdale faithful wild.

Osmajic nearly bagged his second in stoppage time but Stolarczyk denied him as he raced clear.