Coventry City star Ephron Mason-Clark suffered a worrying concussion in the process of scoring an incredible bicycle kick winner for his side.
The 26-year-old smashed home acrobatically in the 86th minute to secure Frank Lampard’s side victory against Stoke.
As his team-mates piled in to celebrate with him, it soon became clear that Mason-Clark was in a bad way on the turf.
He had collided with the Stoke player in the process of scoring in an accidental contact that appeared to knock him unconscious.
The Englishman was down for a concerning length of time as medical staff assessed him on the pitch.
And Mason-Clark was unable to walk off of his own accord, with the stretcher called to carry the Coventry man to the dressing room.
Ephron Mason-Clark scored a spectacular winner for Coventry City but sustained concussion
Lampard said the match winner had a big bump after he had been taken off on a stretcher
The lengthy delay meant the match went on for another quarter of an hour as the Championship leaders held on for three more points.
Sky Sports later reported that Mason-Clark had suffered a concussion in the match-winning incident.
Footballers who suffer concussion are typically advised to be out of action for around three weeks, which will be a blow to the Sky Blues as the forward has four goal contributions so far this season.
Lampard’s men looked as though they would be thwarted by their former boss Mark Robins before Mason-Clark’s superb effort.
Afterwards, Lampard told BBC Coventry & Warwickshire: ‘He has a big bang on his face. It was an outstanding goal for the skill level of it.
‘Not every player can do that. He was really good today. He came against a really good opponent but Ephron kept going at him.’
He went on: ‘It’s a great feeling to win like that because it’s a tough fixture.
‘We dealt with the game brilliantly from start to finish. The work of the players and togetherness and the tactical approach was amazing, particularly off the ball. We thoroughly deserved it against a very good team.
‘They try to play. We pressed and we stopped them getting any form of control. The threat of their wingers is always there but our full-backs were amazing but it’s hard to single our players.
‘We can’t get overexcited we are winning a lot of games but we can’t think we have cracked it.’
