Jamaal Lascelles says he hopes to be jogging again within a fortnight following ankle surgery.
The Newcastle United captain hobbled off in the 2-1 defeat against Watford earlier this month and is expected to miss some of the pre-season friendly fixtures in August.
However, with the Premier League set to restart in mid-September, Lascelles is optimistic about his chances of an earlier than expected comeback.
Lascelles, speaking in today's programme, said: "I’m off crutches and I’m back in trainers and walking around, so it’s going well.
"I’m in every day, in the gym, and doing what I can really without aggravating it too much, because it’s still fairly new.
"I can go on the bike, and I was walking on the treadmill today and doing weights and core.
"Maybe I’ll be able to do light jogging in two weeks. I get the stitches out on Saturday as well."
Lascelles believes that the intense schedule since lockdown ended resulted in the injury.
Lascelles added: "Yeah, I think I broke it – I fractured my ankle in 2017, when we played Bournemouth at home.
"I had a crack when the bone kind of separated from the main bone.
"To be fair, since then, it has been alright because the games were Saturday-Saturday, so I’ve been able to manage it and not really had a flare-up.
"But obviously in lockdown I was running every day and since the restart, we’ve had three games a week and training every day.
"It’s been quite a lot on my ankle – it was swollen and causing me a lot of pain – so I just had the operation to get me right."
