CHESHAM United ace Leon Archer will miss the rest of this season and perhaps the start of next after it was confirmed that he had suffered a severe cruciate ligament injury playing against Bury on February 6.

Manager Andy Leese said: “It’s a huge blow for him and a huge blow for us.”

Archer has been prolific this season and Chesham will miss his goals as they strive for promotion out of the Southern League Midlands division.

Ironically, the player sidelined by Archer’s blistering form this season, Danny Burnell, was loaned out to Weston-Super-Mare just hours before Archer picked up the season-ending injury.

Normally the transfer would not have taken place until the following Monday, but because Weston-Super-Mare were in the area on Saturday playing St Albans, the paperwork was completed ahead of schedule.

Leese said: “If they’d had any other fixture it probably wouldn’t have happened on Saturday, and those 36 hours would have made a big difference.

“But the deal was done the same day Leon got injured.

“Obviously if I’d known Leon was going to get injured I wouldn’t have let Danny go.

“But he has had quite a broken season and he needed games.

“People think there has been some big fall-out between us but he still trains with us on Thursdays and he’s as disappointed as we are.

“He would have loved the chance to win his shirt back.”

Chesham will be further stretched in the attacking department when Darrell Cox starts a four-match ban for picking up a second red card of the season last Saturday.

However, Leese has acted swiftly with approaches for three strikers and says there is a chance one could join in time for Saturday’s meeting with Bromsgrove Rovers.

On paper, it looks like a routine three points for a Chesham side unbeaten in five league matches.

Leese’s team beat Soham 4-1 on Saturday and followed up with a 3-0 win over Stourport on Tuesday, with Steve Wales scoring three times in those matches and Dom Marsala, Kevin Cotton, Chris Bangura and Sam Ledger also on target.

At the same time Bromsgrove, who are in admini-stration, were sacking manager John Snape and losing 4-0 to Leighton.

Leese said: “We won’t be under-estimating them.

“We’re still paying for a poor November and early part of December and we have just got to keep accumulating points.

“I still want to win the league and I’m not writing anything off yet.

“Mathematically it’s not impossible and who knows if Hitchin or Burnham will slip up.

“But if not we want to take second or third and make sure we get home advantage in the play-offs.”