SOUTH African international George Koumantarakis has put pen to paper on a one year deal at Preston North End.

The striker - who has played Champions League football for Swiss side FC Basle - first came to Deepdale on a short-term deal midway through last season.

During that time, he scored three goals in 10 games but picked up a knee injury which brought the cutains down on his season early.

He was offered a new deal at the end of the season and given a month to think about it. He put pen to paper on Friday.

Koumantarakis, 29, is Greek born but through his family tree can play for South Africa. He did in the 2002 World Cup, when he was first spotted by manager Craig Brown.

Known affectionatley as 'Big George' by the North End faithful, he faces a battle with Richard Cresswell, Ricardo Fuller, David Healy, Simon Lynch and Pawel Abbott for a starting place up front in the coming season.

Koumantarakis reckons North End will be pushing for the Premiership this season.

He said: "I am pleased to be back and hope to get into the Premier League with Preston.

"We have some great strikers here and I like playing in adventurous sides and I think with Ricardo, Cressy and myself, we have it all."

Koumantarakis' arrival follows a spate of depatures from Deepdale over the past week.

Tepi Moilanen, Mark Rankine and Iain Anderson all agreed to terminate their contracts, Chorley-born youngster Mark Wright retired through injury and Blackbun-born Joe O'Neill went on loan to Bury for a year.