West Ham United’s injured midfield star Jack Collison is aiming to be back in the first team by Christmas.
The 21-year-old Wales international suffered a serious knee injury in the second half of last season, but has recently returned to the club’s Chadwell Heath training ground to take part in daily physiotherapy and rehabilitation sessions as he steps up his comeback effort.
"I'm hoping to be back around Christmas time,” the talented youngster told Sky Sports’ Soccer AM programme.
“I had an operation about four or four-and-a-half months ago just to stabilise my kneecap and have a bit of a tidy-up. Fingers crossed, it's all gone really well so far and I should be back around Christmas and I'm looking forward to getting back into the action.
"It's nice to get it sorted out. Now I'm confident in it and I can't wait to get back out on the pitch."
West Ham have lost their opening three Premier League games without Collison and sit bottom of the top flight, but the midfielder has expressed that he is impressed with new manager Avram Grant and expects things to improve very soon.
He added: "The new manager seems good. He's quite friendly and comes over and says 'Hello'. At the moment I'm in getting physio every day and it's nice being in and around the boys and being in the mix.
"I think they've all reacted really well to him. He's obviously bringing in his own ideas and it's up to us to start picking up a few points I think.
"Obviously it's not a great start to the season and nobody wants to start like that, but the new manager has come in and he's got his own ideas of how he wants to play and maybe it's going to take a little while to adapt.
"It's only early doors and we've got a nice easy one next week against Chelsea so hopefully we'll pick up some points there."