CLARETS defender Stephen Ward believes Robbie Brady will be a ‘massive loss’ for Burnley if the injury which saw him stretchered off against Leicester on Saturday is as bad as feared.

Brady had just begun to show the consistent level of form that convinced Sean Dyche to part with £13million to sign him 10 months ago.

He provided a goal and an assist in the win at Bournemouth in midweek and was Burnley’s best player before injuring his left knee just before the half hour mark of the weekend defeat to Leicester.

The Republic of Ireland winger left the pitch on a stretcher with his knee in a brace and was taken to hospital for scans on Saturday night with the Clarets awaiting the results.

And Ward believes the 25-year-old’s absence would be a major blow for the Clarets.

“Obviously we don’t know the extent of it yet but it didn’t look great,” Ward said. “Fingers crossed that it’s not as bad as it looked.

“He’s been outstanding for us recently and if it is bad he’ll be a massive loss for us.

“We’ll await the news and we wish him well because he’s been great for us. He’s great to have in the dressing room too so our thoughts are with him if it is bad.

“It’s another test for the squad but we’ve dealt with these kind of setbacks before.”

It was a double disappointment for the Clarets on Saturday with the loss of Brady compounded by just a second away defeat of the season.

Demarai Gray scored the only goal of the game following a rare mistake from Nick Pope but Ward felt the visitors deserved to get something from the trip to the East Midlands.

“We’re still disappointed,” he said. “We went a goal down, Popey’s pushed it on to one of their players, but I thought we stayed in the game really well.

“They’re a very good side at home, they play quite expansive, getting a lot of players forward. We’re disappointed but we thought it was another strong performance from ourselves and we could’ve got something.

“In the second half they came out, sat back and tried to catch us on the break. They were difficult to break down with their lead and as we pushed on they caught us on the break a few times and our keeper has had to make a few saves. All in all it was a good performance but we’re just disappointed not to get anything from it.

“I think we put some really decent deliveries in the box. When we were on top in the first half we needed to score and that would have changed the outlook of the game.

“When it got to half-time they re-organised a bit, sat in and caught us on the counter. That made it difficult for us because it’s tough to break teams down when they put seven or eight men behind the ball and then are ready to counter. It makes the game very end-to-end which isn’t always ideal.

“We’ll go away and look at it but it was a good performance.”