The 31-year old Frenchman has been missing from first team duty for over a year having suffered serious knee ligament damage during a match against Middlesbrough on September 13th 2003.
A brief reserve team run out in May against Liverpool looked to put to ex-Lyon defender back in the first team picture but sadly he suffered a re-occurance of the injury over the summer.
Only now, twelve months since the intial problem, has the centre half stepped up his training programme where it is expected that he will be given some reserve team action within the next month to six weeks.