Motherwell boss Graham Alexander says Liam Grimshaw is making his long-awaited comeback but won't be rushed back to action.
Injury and illness has ruled the English right-back/midfielder out for almost the whole of 2021, but made a comeback of sorts in a midweek bounce game against Queen of the South, playing 45 minutes against Allan Johnston's side.
There's no chance that Grimshaw will feature in today's Premiership clash at St Johnstone, however.
Alexander says with everything the Burnley-born 26-year-old has been through, they're taking things slowly.
"Liam was on the bench for my first game in January and that was it, really, I've not seen him since on the pitch," he said.
"He has been working very hard, but in a slow process. We took it really carefully with him, because of his illness, and we don't want him to have any set-backs.
"But he's such an infectious and positive character that we love having him around, and he has been training with us only for a short period, probably a week, in and out of sessions, not fully.
"We felt getting him into a [bounce] game would be really important for his development. He hasn't come back to full fitness, but he competed really well and played really well for 45 minutes.
"I'm sure if we had asked Grimmy he would have wanted to continue in the game, but we wanted to manage it properly, and it was great to have him involved.
"He's a brilliant character and personality, he's a good player as well, and we need him back in as quickly as possible - but as safely as possible."
Alexander says while it was essentially a training game, Motherwell were still taking it seriously.
He said: "It was a competitive game behind closed doors against Queen of the South and it was a good game for a lot of the boys.
"We don't approach those games in a friendly-type manner, we want them to compete, but that type of game in the Premiership is a different level, so it's steps with him, but he's making good progress.
"The cup competition in pre-season halted fitness progress, because we didn't play the whole squad in those games, so we need to try and get these friendly games behind closed doors to enhance their physical fitness.
"We know we train them in a way that gets them fit but nothing reproduces matches like matches, so the more we can have of that the better, because we want 20-22 players ready to go and compete, and we have to work hard to get them in that shape.
"Liam isn't ready to come into the squad, so it will be the same squad [at St Johnstone] as last week, though hopefully we will have maybe a couple more the following week, because they're getting closer to the sort of fitness that we need."
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