Charlton Athletic boss Jackson explains why he didn’t provide timeline on Jayden Stockley’s injury

Johnnie Jackson has explained why he did not try to set a timeline for Jayden Stockley’s return to the first-team squad.

The striker recently revealed on a podcast that he had drop foot due to two slipped discs in his back.

Stockley had an epidural a few weeks back to try and help solve the problem. The former Preston North End player also added that he had chosen to play on for about three months despite being in some discomfort.

“All along I’d said it had been a complicated injury – which it is,” Jackson, picked watching the club’s FA Youth Cup tie at The Valley on Wednesday, told the South London Press.

“It’s one where the upturn could have come around pretty quickly and you see an improvement but also one that might not pan out that way and that it could take a little bit longer. It wasn’t one I wanted to put a timeframe on because of the nature of the injury.

“You get a leg break then you know you ain’t going to be playing for four or five months. It’s not one of those injuries you see regularly and know what you’re dealing with here.

“We didn’t know how he was going to respond to the treatment and the epidural. We wanted to be pretty vague. I was given the info in laymen’s terms, so I’m not going to start talking about it in detail and not really know what I’m talking about.”

Stockley made it clear it was his choice to keep lining up for Charlton.

“I’d have regular conversations with him, like I do all the players, asking how do they feel and asking if they were fresh going into games,” said Jackson. “He would complain of some back stiffness, or something like that. He was playing it down because he was in the team and playing well – he didn’t want to come out.

“Every player will tell you they have a little bit of stiffness, that’s just the nature of being a footballer and training every day. You have to rely on the player’s honesty and how they report. Some players, like Jayden, are going to want to play through that as much as they can. He’s going to be very, very reluctant to come out. I was the same as a player.

“You’d almost have had to drag me, kicking and screaming, before I admitted defeat and that I wasn’t fit enough to play. Credit to him for soldiering on but at some stage it got too much for him. He would have put his health at risk if he carried on.

“He’s outside doing running, which is a big step in the right direction. He wasn’t able to do that, he wasn’t weight-bearing through that foot. I believe this week he is going to start running and changing direction, it will probably be another week of that and then hopefully we can start re-integrating him back into training.

“Those are tentative steps. He’s got to meet every marker along the way. We’re hoping we’ll at least have him back training with the group within the next couple of weeks. And obviously he’s missed a big chunk of football now.”

MAIN PICTURE: KYLE ANDREWS