Aymeric Laporte is close to a return to Manchester City's line-up as Pep Guardiola hopes to have the influential defender back ahead of schedule.
The 25-year-old centre-back has not played for the defending Premier League champions since injuring knee ligaments on the last day of August.
His absence has been cited as a key reason for City falling so far behind Premier League leaders Liverpool, who hold a 14-point advantage over Guardiola's team.
City originally expected Laporte to be unavailable until February but he is now back in training, albeit on his own, and Guardiola expects him to join in with the full first team squad within the first fortnight of 2020.
"He (Laporte) is getting better," said Guardiola on Tuesday. He is training alone but already on the pitch and I think, yeah, it is the last part. I think in one week or maybe 10 days he can come back and can start to train with us."
"We played 80 minutes with 10 against 11 in a difficult test against Wolves and then after two days we come back and play again."
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