Sheppard hurt his foot and suffered a rare ligament rupture in a pre-season game against Sydney FC.

The Englishman is expected to be sidelined until the New Year, but is working hard in rehab to get back on the park.

“It just depends really on rehab goes and what the surgeon says,” he told FTBL. “Fingers crossed it could be a little bit earlier but you never know.

"These things take time. It’s not an exact science. It’s a not straight road – some days it hurts a little bit more, some days it feels really good.

“I’ve just got to be careful and not make it worse. I just need to make sure its 100% right and ready to go when I come back. I had my best pre-season I’ve had in years. I lost a lot of weight and kept my muscle.

"So I was raring and ready to go. So to get a rare injury is not ideal, but I know the boys will do the job on the pitch. I’ll support them until I’m ready to come back and then help them out when I’m back.”

Sheppard joined the Jets last year and scored three goals from 22 matches in his debut A-League season.

The 25-year-old is off-contract at the end of the 2019/2020 campaign but remains tight-lipped at this stage on where his future will lie.

“That’s one of things that made me get surgery, just to have that I know I’m coming back and getting fit, and I can really stuck into rehab and have a goal to getting back,” he said.

“I don’t want to say too much. We’ll see what happens when I come back from my injury. But like always I’ll fight for my spot and I’ll give it everything, and just see what the future holds.”