Samir Nasri is honing in on a long-awaited return for Manchester City.

The French midfielder has been sidelined since injuring his thigh at training in October but is ahead of schedule in his recovery as he looks to give Manuel Pellegrini's side a boost by making his comeback in the next eight weeks.

Nasri, who is priming himself for the season run-in, told the club's official website: "I'm a little advanced on my schedule.

"Everything goes a little slow at this stage but I've started to do the rehab in the gym, doing two of three hours' work on the bikes trying to build the muscle back up and this week I should start to run again which is pretty good news.

"It also means I'll be sort of back training with the squad and will see my team-mates every day.

"We have a schedule and at the moment we are ahead. We have a fantastic medical team here and though you always want to set targets to be back as a soon as possible, I want to return and be fully fit without any problems because this was kind of a big injury.

"The physios are having to be careful about how I recover, but I want to work hard and be back with the squad before the end of the season and I want to be back training normally with the team towards the end of March."