Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy will come face to face in a final attempt to resolve their dispute.
Both sides are pushing towards a mediation date in the first week of February to agree a settlement and avoid a full trial in the summer, Mirror Online exclusively reports.
Rebekah, 38, is suing Coleen for libel over the mum-of-four’s claims she leaked stories about her to the press, after carrying out a months-long "sting operation" which saw her dubbed "Wagatha Christie".
The wife of former England star Wayne Rooney claimed fellow footballer's wife Rebekah shared fake stories she had posted on her personal Instagram account with The S*n newspaper.
A High Court judge previously gave both sides a deadline of February 8 to come to some agreement and swerve a trial.
A legal expert said: “Pencilling in the first week of February – just days before the deadline – shows just how close to the wire things have got."
They added: "This is the last chance for both women to avoid what would doubtless be a messy and costly trial."
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The meeting could be a “hybrid” one, partly by video-link and partly in person.
Coleen, 34, and Rebekah, who is training for Dancing on Ice, will be expected to take part.
The first round of mediation last year ended with the women “totally wide-apart”.
It’s understood both sides are optimistic an agreement may be struck although time is running out.
Mr Justice Warby ordered Coleen to pay Rebekah’s £22,913.50 legal costs from the first round of their High Court battle.
The pair agreed at that time to delay proceedings to February.
The judge ruled Coleen’s post accusing Rebekah of leaking stories about her private life to the media “clearly identified” her as being “guilty of the serious and consistent breach of trust that she alleges”.
Lawyers for Coleen had said that the use of three ellipses and the word “account” in the post meant she was not implying that Rebekahwas personally responsible for the leak.
In a judgement in November, Mr Justice Warby ruled that the "natural and ordinary" meaning of Coleen's posts was that Rebekah had "regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Ms Rooney's personal Instagram account by secretly informing The S*n newspaper of Ms Rooney's private posts and stories".
Announcing his decision, the judge said that the meaning he had determined was "substantially the same as the claimant's meaning".
In his ruling, Mr Justice Warby said Coleen's message was "a considered post, using wording composed with some care", adding: "It would be clear to the ordinary reader from the outset that it was meant seriously, and intended to convey a message of some importance."
He also rejected Coleen's contention that she simply referred to Rebekah's Instagram account, rather than Rebekah herself.
The judge ruled: "I certainly do not think that the ordinary reader would take that single word (account), albeit repeated, to indicate that Mrs Rooney remains in doubt about who the wrongdoer was."
He added: "There is nothing in these words, apart from the word 'account', that in any way suggests that the behaviour of which Mrs Rooney is complaining might have been carried out by anyone other than the account holder, Mrs Vardy."
In the now infamous post, Coleen wrote on Instagram and Twitter: "I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them.
"It's ................ Rebekah Vardy's account."
