Preston boss Alan Irvine revealed Darren Carter's unstoppable late winner over Leicester on Tuesday was the culmination of hours of practice.Carter's 30-yard thunderbolt was the undoubted highlight of a turgid encounter at the Walkers Stadium and gave North End their first away win since December.

The midfielder collected a loose ball 40 yards out and ran goalwards before unleashing a fierce shot that flew past Paul Henderson and into the top corner.

Irvine said: "It was a fantastic goal and a terrific strike. We know he is capable of doing that because we have seen him practising in training, where he does it on a fairly regular basis.

"He has had a few in recent weeks where he has not quite caught them right, but that one he certainly did and it was unstoppable."

Carter's goal provided Preston with only their third away win of the season.

Irvine added: "We thought we were only going to get a point, which would have been better than no points that's for sure. "But at this stage of the season we need to be picking up as many three points' as we possibly can.

"This is a big three points because of how close we are to Leicester now and the other clubs down at the bottom. "Leicester had got away from us with their win at the weekend when we lost."

Preston's only other effort on target was in the opening minute.

Craig Beattie almost made a dream debut by scoring after just 32 seconds.

Loan signing Beattie was thrown straight into the Lillywhites' starting line-up after joining the club for the remainder of the season from West Brom earlier in the day.

He was presented with an immediate opportunity to endear himself to North End supporters when he was one-on-one with Paul Henderson, but the Leicester goalkeeper rushed out quickly to block as Beattie tried to lift the ball over him.

Beattie was substituted in the 38th-minute, and Irvine revealed his fellow Scot had suffered a hamstring injury.

"It looks like he has injured his hamstring, which is a massive blow," said Irvine. "It is a shame because he nearly had a dream start with a chance in the first minute when the goalkeeper did very well to come out and smother his shot, but it might well be a very disappointing start now."

Irvine added: "We will assess him in the morning to see how he is."

Leicester manager Ian Holloway claimed the result did not change anything in the context of the battle at the bottom of the table.

"All it does is add more pressure to a situation where there was already a lot of pressure," said Holloway.

"Some local newspapers we saying that if we won this game we would be out of sight - what a load of rubbish.

"And just because we have lost it doesn't mean anything has changed the other way.

"We still need between 50 and 52 points to be safe, we just have one fewer game to achieve it that's all."

Holloway also suffered an injury blow with the news that captain Stephen Clemence is likely to miss Saturday's home game against league leaders Bristol City with a thigh strain.

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