The majority of Nottingham Forest’s squad may be spread across the world enjoying their summer holidays, but one player is working desperately hard to be fit for pre-season.
Martin O’Neill’s men return to training later this month ahead of a busy pre-season schedule which takes them to Spain and Greece and Hillal Soudani is hoping to be on those flights to make an impression on the Ulsterman.
Soudani is recovering from a serious knee injury which he sustained in November’s Carabao Cup defeat to Burton Albion.
Since suffering that injury, the Algerian international has been out in Qatar working on his lengthy rehabilitation.
And in gearing up for a first pre-season under O’Neill and assistant boss Roy Keane, Soudani has been back in his home country, spending the last month increasing his fitness.
The 31-year-old took to twitter to post a series of videos of him going through a variety of strengthening exercises with his personal coach, Aissa Bakli.
He enjoyed a fine start to his career at Forest, following his summer move from Dinamo Zagreb , scoring the City Ground winner over Reading with a fine, curling effort, before netting the equaliser at Wigan in a 2-2 draw - but he then spent a month on the sidelines through a knee injury, before his setback in Staffordshire.
