Town Physio Chris Skitt gives an update on Stefan Payne
Shrewsbury Town are waiting on scans to understand the full extent of Stefan Payne’s foot injury.Stefan came off just 12 minutes into his Town debut with a suspected metatarsal injury but Physio Chris Skitt was hopeful the damage wasn’t as bad as first feared.
“Stefan unfortunately came off quite quickly into his debut”, Chris told ShrewsWeb.
“He’s had a little contact injury onto the top of his foot so we did send him for an x-ray during the game and we are waiting for results for further scans to come back at the minute.
“It’s a bit of a waiting game for him. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious, just a little soft tissue injury, and we can get him back swiftly.
“He has had previous injuries to his metatarsal so there’s always a risk that it could be that. It could be a new fracture, or equally it could have opened up the old fracture site, so it needs to take a lot of careful investigation to have a look at.”
Payne will now work with both the medical team at Town and parent club Barnsley in order to give him the best care possible.
“I know Craig really well up at Barnsley”, said Skitt.
“He’s got a really good department up there so we will be in close contact during his rehab and making sure we are both doing our best to get him back as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, AJ Leitch-Smith is back in full training after 10 weeks out with a knee problem. Skitt is pleased with how AJ is getting on, but admits there is a lot of hard work still to do.
“I’m pleased for AJ, he’s worked quite hard since his knee injury”, Chris said.
“He’s been really desperate to get back as quickly as possible but with medial knee ligaments it’s key that they’ve been through their stringent return to play protocol to make sure they stay back in the fold.
“We’ve gone through everything that we needed to, he’s gone through all the markers that we’ve set to allow him to go back into training and he’s been back in for just over a week now.
“The treatment and the exercises don’t just stop because he’s back in training. We try and keep him in training by giving him protocols and exercises to do for an ongoing period of time.”