Jagielka admits it has taken longer than expected to regain his fitness, and that it will take time for him to rediscover his full match sharpness after so long on the sidelines.

“I tried setting goals early doors, say six, seven months, but obviously at the moment it’s been a little longer than I would want,” he added. “Unfortunately it’s quite a complicated injury with your knee.

“You have to do a lot of work with it and take it week by week. I am feeling good, I’m quite refreshed at the moment and hopefully in the next few weeks I will have an inkling as to when I’ll be back playing again.

“(It will) probably be in the next two or three weeks, but after eight months or so I can’t imagine my first touch being as it was.

“So it might take me a little while to get sort of game-ready, but I am looking forward to it.

“It’s going well, still quite slow but that’s part and parcel of it at the moment.

“I’ve just got to wait, and hopefully a few weeks into the New Year I’ll be able to start training and see where it goes from there.”