Boss backs Portsmouth medical handling of Aston Villa's Andre Green

The Aston Villa winger underwent a knee operation on Monday '“ just 20 days after arriving at Fratton Park in a season-long deal.

According to a Green tweet since deleted, the winger has played through the problem for most of the year.

Subsequently, a cyst has been removed from the ACL in his right leg, sidelining the 20-year-old for around a month.

Jackett is adamant Pompey had never been made aware of the issue by either Green or Villa, before informed in the last week that an operation was required.

The problem also didn't show on the '˜extensive' medical undertaken by the forward on August 29 ahead of his loan move.

And the Blues boss insists he was very much in the dark before the issue came to a head.

Jackett said: '˜Obviously it has flared up, but there was no indication to us that this was going to be a problem through our medical.

'˜Cysts don't generally show up on medicals, apart from very extensive MRI scans, and then you are reliant on the player and the club to tell you there may be a problem '“ which wasn't the case.

'˜I was genuinely surprised when he said he'd spoken to the Aston Villa doctor and wanted the cyst removed.

'˜He had no confidence at present in his knee and wanted to try to get it out as early as possible, so we have to accept that. Nobody goes under the knife for no reason, we have to back him and back that decision.

'˜But it was a surprise to me, there was nothing in the very extensive medical we did or during conversations and talks with the player and the parent club. There was nothing that lent itself towards that being a risk for us when taking the player.

'˜I couldn't see where that particular situation had come from, there was nothing in his playing record that said it.

'˜When you sign a player you have to conduct a thorough medical '“ and we did '“ but cysts don't always show, they very rarely do.

'˜You are reliant on the player generally telling you of any potential problems and that wasn't mentioned by him or his parent club in the context that it might be a problem to us going forward.

'˜Similarly, the ACL on a footballer is a very sensitive area and obviously flared up.

'˜He has assessed it and felt that was what he needed to do, to remove it so he could go forward positively.

'˜We back the player 100 per cent and look forward him coming back into the group now, although it looks the best part of a month out.'

Green has featured twice since arriving from the Championship.

His second outing involved being replaced at half-time against Shrewsbury on the winger's League One debut for Pompey.

And Jackett was surprised to read the player's comment that the issue had been troubling him for a while.

He added: '˜I did read that and felt it was a strange comment because if you are looking at his playing record it's very good.

'˜Usually you take a player on loan because they haven't been playing, whereas Andre had been playing a very good standard and scored two goals in Germany in the summer after a full pre-season.

'˜I don't think the injury influenced his two performances, I've spoken to him extensively about it and hasn't mentioned the games for Portsmouth.

'˜It has flared up, badly enough that he wanted to get it cut and dried and removed.'