Preston North End ace Li-Bau Stowell remains Chorley's No.1 goalkeeper

Li-Bau Stowell remains Chorley’s No.1 despite being taken out of the firing line in recent weeks by manager Andy Preece.

The 18-year-old Preston North End goalkeeper arrived at Victory Park in the summer on a season-long loan.

He has turned in a number of impressive displays, but a red card shown to him following the final whistle of the 1-1 draw against Worcester City in the FA Cup last month meant he had to serve a ban.

Stowell was reprimanded by the referee after complaining too vociferously after The Faithful scored a stoppage-time equaliser.

In the subsequent replay, Stowell was beaten by a worldie by Luke Rowe as the Magpies were dumped out of the cup in the final round of qualifying.

Since then, he’s been on the sidelines after Preece swooped for Blackburn Rovers’ Jake Oram on a month’s loan.

Oram’s good form has meant he has kept the shirt, but Preece revealed Stowell will be back between the sticks once Oram returns to his parent club.

He will deliberate over which goalkeeper to choose ahead of Chorley’s home game against fourth-placed Hereford this weekend.

“Li-Bau is still our No.1 keeper,” Preece confirmed. “Its just that he got sent off in the Worcester game and wasn’t available.

“Then we brought Jake in for a month and he’s done well for us and so has kept his place in the team.

“Li-Bau will come back into the team once Jake’s loan deal is up.

“L-Bau has done great, for an 18-year-old lad, he’s got an old head on his shoulders and he’s come here to learn.

”The sending off was his first little blip, he’s got to learn that he can’t run towards referees, especially when he’s on a yellow card.

“The consequence of that is he’s gone from playing every week to having to wait for a few games, but he will come back stronger for that. He’s a good character.

“We have been lucky to bring in somebody of the quality of Jake - he’s been excellent for us.”

Intriguingly, Chorley came up against their former long-time goalkeeper Matty Urwin, who has joined Spennymoor Town, last weekend.

The ex-Magpies stalwart left the club last season due to his work commitments as a coach at Blackburn Rovers, but his circumstances have changed meaning he has decided to resume his playing career.

He turned in a fine performance to thwart his former club as the Moors - currently bottom of the National League North - picked up only their second win of the season, winning 2-0.

Preece admits he toyed with the idea of tempting Urwin back to the club but decided to stay loyal to Stowell.

“It’s Sod’s law that Matty gets the man of the match last weekend. We probably had more shots on target than Spennymoor but we just couldn’t take our chances,” said Preece.

“When he left us, he didn’t think he was going to be able to play. It was probably about two weeks after he came back to us as goalkeeping coach that he found a way of being able to play.

“We obviously had Li-Bau at that point and he was doing well. Matty had an opportunity to go to Spennymoor.

“The timing for us; if it had been earlier then things might have been different but it’s just one of those things.”