Paul Heckingbottom praises Will Keane professionalism amid transfer speculation

New Preston boss Paul Heckingbottom praised Will Keane’s professionalism amid transfer speculation after his winning goal fired North End to a 1-0 Championship victory over Luton.

In Heckingbottom’s first match in charge of the Lilywhites, Keane bagged his first goal of the season in the 39th minute to secure three points against one of the division’s favourites for promotion.

West Brom have reportedly enquired about Keane’s services in the past week but his new manager quashed suggestions he would be leaving Deepdale.

“He’s happy here,” Heckingbottom said. “He’s a good professional. Contracts are contacts aren’t they? You’re under contract. If people aren’t going to pay what the club value you at, you work hard.

“The time to sell is when you’ve got a replacement in, even from a business model. It doesn’t make sense [to sell] for me.”

Heckingbottom, who was named as Ryan Lowe’s replacement earlier this week, was pleased with his team’s performance against the relegated Hatters as they look to recover from what the new boss believes is a “hangover” from last season.

He said: “I’ve been trying to get my message across about what I want as a team and what I want to see from my team. I want us to be fearless without the ball and really aggressive to win try and win the ball back. I want us to be brave and try and pass the ball no matter what.

“We will probably change something in every game, based on the opposition, but the fact we want to take the ball and pass the ball won’t change.

“You don’t come in if things have been brilliant. I think there’s been a hangover from last season, a bit of negativity around the place, but me and Macca (assistant Stuart McCall) are aware of that. It has been trying to get people to shed that. [That time has] gone. It’s new. It’s different.”

The hosts had to dig in deep as their opponents pushed right until the end but Luton simply could not penetrate a determined defensive set-up.

Visiting boss Rob Edwards was left frustrated with what might have been after Luton’s third Championship match without a victory this season.

He said: “We had 17 shots and only four on target. I will give Preston credit, they put some brilliant blocks in there, but we need to be better in that final third to score the goal.

“Overall, they’ve had very little but they’ve scored their goal and taken their opportunity so I suppose the onus is not on them to try and get any more.

“We still had enough to get something from it, in my opinion, to win it but we didn’t. We’ll have to digest it, dissect it, look back, look at those moments where we can be better again and try to implement that on Tuesday (against QPR in the Carabao Cup).

“I don’t think we are adapting back to the Championship necessarily but we know we are going to be a more dominant team than we were last time in the Championship. You can see that today. We’ve got to be better in these types of games when we have good territory.”