Johnnie Jackson believes Karl Robinson left Charlton because he thought new owners would sack him.

Wantaway Addicks chief Roland Duchatelet has been trying to sell the club for some time and a deal with an Australian consortium is believed to be close.

Robinson swapped Charlton for Oxford United last week and Lee Bowyer was placed in caretaker charge with club captain Jackson assisting him.

Jackson, who was part of Robinson’s management team, said: “In the past week or so you start hearing about the manager possibly looking elsewhere and trying to resign, it made everything even more uncertain. It’s been a turbulent six weeks or so.

“I worked closely with Karl and he brought me into the coaching set up, so I’ll always be grateful for that.

“I enjoyed working with him and obviously I was privy to some of the stuff that was going on and I know that he felt if a takeover was to happen pretty soon, the new guys would bring in their own manager and he’d be out of a job, so he had the worry of that.

“In that time, the Oxford job became available and he probably looked at that and thought ‘if I’m going to get sacked anyway, why shouldn’t I leave now?’ So I think that’s the way it played out, that’s not gospel, he would give you the whole story, but that’s the way I understood it.

“He has his reasons for not wanting to hang about, he tried to resign a couple times and was told ‘no’. I think once he tried to resign, it’s a difficult place to come back from.

“Once that went public and the players found out about it, you’re almost untenable. How do you come back from saying you don’t want to be here?”

Bowyer won his first game in charge against promotion rivals Plymouth on Saturday.

Two goals in 17 minutes had the Valley rocking - a complete contrast to their previous match against Fleetwood which ended goalless.

Jackson, 35, added: “The key thing we spoke about before Plymouth, me and Bow, we knew the crowd had pretty much turned on Karl. For whatever reason, right or wrong, he’d lost favour with a lot of the support.

MORE: Charlton dad-to-be Zyro highlights one key change under Bowyer

“Obviously, being two Charlton boys, with Lee going through the ranks and me being here for so many years, we were pretty sure we’d get the response on matchday. We knew the crowd would be 100 per cent behind us, and spur us on.

“We got that across to the lads and made sure they bought into it. So we had to be attacking with two forwards on the pitch, we pressed high and got into their faces.

“Karl and Lee are completely different [in the dressing room]. Karl was very, very vocal and would bombard with info, whereas Lee’s a lot more backseat with little snippets of info, quite chilled and calm.

“So we said ‘let’s take this like a mini season of 10 games, can we finish top of our league?’ Wigan, Shrewsbury and Blackburn would be hard to catch, but Rotherham, Scunthorpe, Peterborough, Plymouth and Portsmouth, can we top that league? We need to start now, that was the message.”

Takeover delays have frustrated Charlton fans throughout the season, but Jackson hopes they will get their wish soon.

He added on talkSPORT2 : “It’s vital, just for the fans. They need closure on this chapter.

“The uncertainty around the football club isn’t healthy. Who’s going to come in? Who’s going to take over? Who’s going to be manager? What division will we be in? The whole thing creates a little disillusion in the crowd. They need a new direction and focus.

“The Valley was rocking on Saturday. Because of results and the uncertainty around the club, it would have been easy for the fans to stay away.

“We’ve got four or five more home games left and if we can get the Valley like that every week, it’s going to be difficult for sides to play against us.”

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