Stephy Mavididi’s season is over after the 18 year old suffered a horrendous hamstring injury during his spell at Charlton.

The Arsenal youngster had been impressing on loan, but picked up the injury at the weekend in a game against Shrewsbury.

It’s far from the normal hamstring strain either, as Addicks boss Karl Robinson revealed he’d have to undergo surgery to fix it.

“It’s going to be 14-16 weeks,” he said.

“Hopefully he’ll have an operation by the end of the week, it’s come away from the bone we think. The kid was in tears this morning on the phone to me. The overriding emotion from that was sickening. The kid’s been tremendous for us.

“We wish Stephy the quickest recovery possible. He’s a credit to his family, a credit to Arsenal FC. I’d hope to have him back next year but that’s in the hands of Arsenal.

“We’ll do everything possible we can emotionally to support him and get him back on his feet. He’s a tremendous kid and a tremendous talent, it’s a real sickener to all of us.”

And Robinson put the blame for the injury squarely upon himself.

“I’ve got to take responsibility,” he said. “I apologise to Stephy, I let the emotion of the result get in the way of the development of a player.

“It’s my fault he got injured. I’m sick as well, because I know working with young players that once you have an increase in loading period then two-and-a-half games is probably the maximum amount of loading you can do when you’ve not played first-team football before.

“Because he has been so good we have become reliant on him and I’ve got carried away with how well he’s been doing, rather than how much I need to protect him.”