Preston North End produced a superb performance to beat Bournemouth 3-2 on Tuesday night – but they have now been served some terrible news.
The Lilywhites went 3-0 up on the South Coast as Tom Barkhuizen, Scott Sinclair and Patrick Bauer all found the net with fine goals in different ways.
Junior Stanislas and Sam Surridge pulled goals back to set up a tense finale, but Preston held on for all three points.
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Preston should have been in great spirits after that win, but the three points were somewhat overshadowed by a major injury towards the end of the game.
Goalscorer Bauer went down during a Bournemouth attack, and whilst the referee continued play, it soon became clear that the German was in distress.
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He ended up being stretchered off the pitch and replaced by Paul Huntington, with North End fans fearing the worst for the centre back.
Now, boss Alex Neil has confirmed that Bauer has suffered a major Achilles injury – and will now miss the rest of the season.
Neil admitted that the news is ‘devastating’, and it will no doubt hurt Bauer that he went from the jubilation of scoring what proved to be the winning goal to possibly being out long-term.
Preston fans will remember fellow defender Liam Chilvers suffering a similar injury in 2008, and he never really returned the same player.
Tom Clarke did bounce back from an Achilles tear though, and we will now have to hope and pray that Bauer comes back better than ever – but his absence surely means that Preston move for a centre back in January.