West Bromwich Albion have flown Joleon Lescott out to America for a pre-season style training camp in an attempt to have the defender available immediately after the international break.
Lescott, a summer signing on a free transfer from Manchester City, is yet to make a competitive outing for the club having injured his knee in a pre-season friendly on August 2.
West Brom’s next game comes against one of his former clubs, Everton, on September 13, and the Midlands side have not given up hope of having one of their stellar arrivals fit for that fixture.
“Joleon is going to go to the States to do a fitness routine there with people I know and who I’ve worked with before at Everton,” Alan Irvine, the head coach, said.
“There’s no concern, there was just a feeling that that might be the best approach for him at this moment.
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“The plan is that he will come back from that absolutely ready to go and we can have him for the following week.”
West Brom, who failed to win any of their opening three Barclays Premier League matches, are aiming to use the international break to work on the fitness of a host of players.
Three new signings - Sebastian Blanco, Silvestre Varela and Georgios Samaras - are yet to feature while Cristian Gamboa, Jason Davidson, James Morrison and Brown Ideye, the £10 million club record signing, are still lacking match fitness.
“We’re in a strange situation where we have one group of players who are ready, who we can rely on in terms of fitness and who we know a lot better and another group of players who are all at different stages in terms of their fitness and their understanding of what we’re doing,” Irvine added.
“I would have certainly felt more confident if we had all our players here for the next two weeks but we don’t because of internationals.
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“We have 12 or 13 going away [on international duty]. Samaras and Davidson will be away. Varela, Blanco, Gamboa and Ideye will be here so we’ve got a few who we can work with.”