Preston North End right-back Darnell Fisher facing time out because of a hamstring injury

The 26-year-old suffered a hamstring injury in training on Friday and Lilywhites boss Alex Neil expects to be without him for a ‘bit of time’.

It is a blow for Fisher who scored his first PNE goal in the 2-2 draw at Norwich a week last Saturday.

He had missed a chunk of the pre-season programme with a calf strain and had recently got back in the side.

Neil said: “He hurt his hamstring in training on Friday which is unfortunate.

“Darnell would have been involved against Stoke had this not happened.

“It looks like it is going to keep him out for a bit of time.”

Fisher only played once in the shortened pre-season and sat out the first game of the season against Swansea due to a lack of fitness.

He returned to play in the Carabao Cup win at Derby and featured at Norwich.

Fisher scored North End’s second goal at Carrow Road – his 105th appearance for the club.

The former Celtic man is one of three players to have filled the right-back slot already this season. Alan Browne played there against Swansea, with Joe Rafferty featuring in the defeat to Brighton.

For the Stoke game , Neil started with a 3-4-1-2 system.

That had Tom Barkhuizen playing at right wing-back until his red card.

Browne switched there when Barkhuizen got his marching orders.

Later in the game when Neil changed to a 4-3-2, Rafferty came off the bench to play at right-back and free up Browne to return to the midfield.

North End are arguably stronger with Fisher’s presence at right-back.

But he does tend to pile up the yellow cards leading to suspension, while niggling injuries have kept him out in the past.

Fisher will miss the trip to Brentford on Sunday (2pm) – the game moved as the Bees are in Carabao Cup action on Thursday – but after that there is a fortnight’s gap in the schedule due to the international break.

There is then a four-week run of Saturday/midweek football before the November break.

When action resumes in mid-November, there is the same busy schedule running through until Christmas.

Such a run will test players’ fitness, managers needing to use the depth of their squads to cope with the demand.