‘Unprofessional and untrue’: External coach hits back at Heckingbottom 

He said: “He (Jebbison) has been working with a fella called Tom King. It’s an accident, I get it, but it’s not happening any more with any Preston players. These guys work with the players and post their work all over social media and want to promote their business and are happy to take the money. 

“They don’t give us any money back when they injure the players in their sessions. They’ll not be posting on social media that Jebbo’s out for a month, so I’ll tell everyone that when they work with players they can put them out as well.”

Heckingbottom has now banned Preston’s players from using external consultants. This evening, King posted a video on Instagram responding to Heckingbottom’s comments. 

“To be honest, I’ve been sitting on this for a couple of days and initially planning to ignore the situation as a whole,” he said. “But considering the recent press involvement and the potential negative implications – not only for my business and my staff members but also for my credible colleagues in similar fields, who work so hard – I feel something needs to be said.

“The comments made surrounding an incident involving our client and my close friend Daniel Jebbison at KPI are not only unprofessional but also untrue. Having worked in Premier League football for several years prior to setting up KPI, I understand the frustration and emotion when a player is injured – it affects the whole club.

“We share the pain for Daniel and for the club and are of course upset by this situation too, but this was an unfortunate accident involving an interaction between the foot and a piece of equipment, not the result of unsafe, inappropriate or poorly-prescribed training.

“At KPI, athlete safety is our top priority. We only work with full club consent, in open communication with staff, and every session is designed to complement and never compromise their training and match schedule.

“This is no different for Preston, with close communication on a weekly basis with the sport science and medical department but injuries during training are unpreventable and this one in particular was close to impossible to avoid. 

“This is the first ever injury we’ve seen within these four walls at KPI and that’s a fact. We feel it’s important to set the record straight. We believe in collaboration and every club and athlete within our network believe we are doing our best for the athlete.”

Before setting up KPI, King worked for Liverpool for five years  – with half of those as a First Team Fitness Coach for the Premier League side.  Jebbison is on loan at PNE from Bournemouth.