Frank Lampard has been speaking about the fitness of Chelsea midfielder N'Golo Kante.
The Frenchman did make his way over to Ireland at the start of last week with his teammates but was left out of the draw with Bohemians as well as the 4-0 win over St Patrick's due to the knee injury he suffered at the end of last season.
Despite managing to feature in the Europa League final win over Arsenal, Kante didn't take part in any of France's Euro 2020 qualifiers against Turkey and Andorra last month.
Chelsea have since arrived in Japan for their pre-season tour and Kante has been included in Lampard's squad for the games against Kawasaki Frontale and Barcelona.
But will he feature in either game?
Speaking at a press conference this morning (UK time) the Blues head coach had an update on the Frenchman who has been such a key player at Stamford Bridge ever since his arrival from Leicester City three summers ago.
"N’Golo is here and will hopefully integrate with the rest of the team," Lampard told reporters.
"I don’t envisage him being too long and hopefully will take part in one of the games while we are here."
This follows on from what Lampard said about Kante last week.
"He’s been training on his own with the physios this week because he’s still feeling the effects of his injury from the end of last season and we just want to be careful with him," he told the club's official website.
"It’s not a big problem. We know he’s a fit boy and he has a great attitude so the last thing we want to do is push him too early.
"Hopefully next week in Japan we’ll start to integrate him into the group."
Chelsea squad in Japan:
Goalkeepers: Kepa, Willy Caballero, Jamie Cumming
Defenders: Cesar Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Davide Zappacosta, Kurt Zouma, Marcos Alonso, Andreas Christensen, Emerson, Fikayo Tomori
Midfielders: Kenedy, N’Golo Kante, Jorginho, Danny Drinkwater, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Ross Barkley, Mateo Kovacic, Mason Mount, Kasey Palmer
Forwards: Pedro, Michy Batshuayi, Olivier Giroud, Tammy Abraham, Christian Pulisic (joining up shortly)
