Manchester City attacker Samir Nasri has revealed that he hopes to be back in action before the end of March.
The Frenchman has not represented his English club since suffering a hamstring problem in October.
Nasri has claimed that he was initially expected to be on the sidelines for four to six months, but the 28-year-old is confident that he will be back for the Premier League run-in.
"The original estimate by the doctors was that I'd be out for between four to six months and the surgeon told me the same. But I've already done two months and I'm targeting the international break in March to be back properly with the squad," Nasri told Man City's official website.
"I'm a little advanced on my schedule. Everything goes a little slow at this stage but I've started to do the rehab in the gym, doing two of three hours' work on the bikes trying to build the muscle back up and this week I should start to run again which is pretty good news.
"It also means I'll be sort of back training with the squad and will see my team-mates every day. We have a schedule and at the moment we are ahead. We have a fantastic medical team here and though you always want to set targets to be back as a soon as possible. I want to return and be fully fit without any problems because this was kind of a big injury."
Nasri has scored once in eight games for Man City this season.
Matt Law
