BREAKING NEWS: Because of what transpired in the dressing room, Stoke City’s incredible ace has officially terminated his contract in order to join his former manager in Sunderland.

News as Stoke City prepare to take on Preston North End in the Championship at Deepdale

Steven Schumacher and close mate Ryan Lowe have been dodging each other this week as they prepare for what will be only their second battle against each other as managers.

Schumacher was taken to Bury as a coach by Lowe, his old teammate at Crewe Alexandra and Bury, and they formed a successful double act at Gigg Lane and then Plymouth Argyle, winning two promotions alongside each other before Schumacher made it a third on his own. Lowe left Argyle for Preston in 2021 and he is now trying to guide his team into the Championship play-offs while Schumacher, who left for Stoke in December, is at the other end of the division fighting for survival.

It is an important afternoon for both in such a tight league table – Preston are four points off the top six with a game in hand while Stoke are in a group of eight clubs separated by just two points – and that means regular conversations have been canned until after full-time.

READ MORE: Every word from Steven Schumacher press conference ahead of Preston vs Stoke City

“As players we played against each other loads,” said Schumacher. “We’ve been mates for years and I obviously coached with him for five or six years as well.

We speak all the time, a couple of times a week at least, but this week we don’t. We just don’t pick the phone up to each other. It gets to a point when I can’t say too much and he knows he won’t say too much. I won’t be speaking to him until after the game on Saturday and hopefully I’ll be going into his office in a better mood than the last time.”

Preston beat Schumacher’s Plymouth 2-1 at home in September and are back at Deepdale now without an expected mid-week game in their legs. Wednesday night’s match at Southampton was postponed just over three hours before kick-off because of a huge fire next to St Mary’s Stadium.

Schumacher said: “These things can happen in a season and games get called off for loads of different reasons – that was definitely a new one for me. They were down there on Tuesday and will have had to travel back on Wednesday night. They’ll be a little bit fresher but we won’t use that as an excuse. We have to go there and get our energy levels right because that’s what it will take for us to get a result.”