Lewes manager Hugo Langton says he fears the worst for new signing Gary Noel after the striker got injured on his debut.

This is Noel’s second spell at the Rooks after he did a brief spell at the club in 2011 scoring three goals in 17 games, but left the club in 2011 when they were relegated from the Conference South.

Since then Noel has spent the past nine years plying his trade in Austria and Germany, most recently playing for Rot-Weiss Koblenz in Germany.

In that time Noel has played in the Europa League for St. Polten, where he faced sides liked Dutch giants PSV Eindhoven.

The 29-year-old forward, who has been capped 11 times by Mauritius, made his much anticipated return against league leaders Worthing at the Dripping Pan on Wednesday night in a 3-1 defeat to the Rebels.

However, his match lasted just 80 seconds before he was taken off injured and Langton is fearing the worse.

He said: “One big blow is that our new striker Gary Noel got injured 80 seconds into the game and to be honest to me it looked like he damaged his ligaments.

“We will know the full extent of the injury in the next 24-48 hours, but I am fearing the worst for him.”

Despite this blow Langton also has two other new players in the squad in Aaron Cosgrave and Jardel Francis- Adeyinka plus he revealed he will add to the squad today.

He said: “Aaron Cosgrave is someone that I know well from my time at Welling and he was in non-league with Havant last season.

“Aaron will get better as the weeks go on.

“He made his debut on Wednesday but was an unknown to his team-mates, so I was really pleased with how he did.

“Jardel Francis-Adeyinka is the other player we had added.

“Jardel had a tough time at QPR and has been playing in Sweden for a short spell, he is one who wasn’t involved last night due to us waiting for his international clearance going through, but I am not looking forward to working with him.

“I also have a defender joining, who can play centre-back and central midfield.

“I am not trying to overhaul the squad, I am just trying to add some competition for places.

“One player who really impressed me against Worthing was Dayshonne Golding.

“I had questions about Dayshonne and what he does off the ball, but he answered them.

“The challenge for him now is whether he can do that on a regular basis.”

The Rooks are at the Dripping Pan again as they take on bottom of the table Brightlingsea.

Lewes’ opponents were beaten 7-0 away at Bowers and Pitsea on Tuesday but Langton says that was the worst possible result for his side.

He said: “The thing that we need to be careful of is we know they are bottom of the league and they got thrashed on Tuesday night, which was the worst possible result for us.

“We are expecting them to show a fightback after being embarrassed on Tuesday and I know exactly what that is like as when I was at Welling we played Whitehawk after they had had seven put past them in the previous game and we only beat them 1-0 as they went played terrifically against us and I am expecting Brightlingsea to give us a similar situation on Saturday.

“However, we need to focus on ourselves and continue put in performances in order to try to nick the odd points here and there, as well as keeping fighting to make sure we stay up this season.”

Langton confirmed their is no chance of Noel being able to play tomorrow and Leon Redwood remains a doubt for the game against Brightlingsea with a hamstring problem, which saw his miss the defeat to Worthing. However, the new defender, who is signing today, will be available at the weekend.