Preston North End boss Frankie McAvoy has admitted to the club's official website that he hopes that Fulham will be without the services of Aleksander Mitrovic this weekend. 

The Serbian international missed the West London side's recent draw against Derby County through illness and was a notable absentee for Marco Silva's team as they drew a blank against the rock bottom Rams.

It remains to be seen if the striker will be back in time to face the Lancashire side this weekend, with Mitrovic no doubt being keen to get back to showing the sort of form that has seen him top the goal scoring charts in the division.

Now McAvoy has made the following admission about the player as his side gears up to host Fulham at Deepdale tomorrow:

"He's (Marco Silva) got a fantastic striker in [Aleksandar] Mitrovic – God knows how many goals he'll score – hopefully he doesn't score on Saturday and hopefully the illness that kept him out on Wednesday night is the exact same on Saturday if I'm honest."

Mitrovic already has 21 goals in his opening 18 games in the Sky Bet Championship and will undoubtedly have Ivan Toney's record of 31 from the 2020/21 season for Brentford in his sights.

The Serb has now scored 74 goals for Fulham.

The Verdict 

Stopping Mitrovic will be key to Preston achieving any sort of result against the league leaders - and that is a fact that almost goes without saying.

The striker is far and away the best finisher in the Championship and is probably averaging around two goals a game at present.

However North End have shown that they can mix it with the so called 'big boys' of the division in the past and will certainly take solace from the fact that they went away to Bournemouth and won this season.

If they can repeat those types of levels of performance, there is no reason why they can't cause an upset once more.