Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson has urged Antoine Semenyo to continue studying his own game while recovering from injury.
The striker dealt the Robins a major pre-season blow when it was confirmed he will be out for up to 12 weeks with a shin injury, ruling him out of the first few games of the season, with a return to training expected in early September.
Semenyo suffered the injury shortly after making his international debut earlier this month.
What's more frustrating is that the 22-year-old will be missing pre-season training for the second year in a row. Semenyo had knee surgery a year ago and it wasn't until December that he fully recovered and helped transform City's attack, with his excellent form attracting Premier League scouts from across the country. He finished the season with eight goals and 12 assists.
The striker would later admit the injury came as a blessing in disguise as it gave him time to study his game, saying "it gave me time to assess where I'm at and where I could be. It helped me analyse my game and get me to the point where I'm at now by implementing some new things."
Pearson now believes he can rely on the player's maturity and desire to improve to ensure he can hit the ground running when he returns to action.
"It's a frustration for him. He had a really good second half of the season and he's an exciting player. But we just have to see how that one goes," Pearson said on Robins TV.
"What's important for him is that he continues to be the type of player, he learned a lot last year when he was out injured, he studies his own game and he's very ambitious. I'm delighted for him and his family that he made his debut for Ghana and his federation were very diligent in making sure they looked after him and that he came back so we could make decisions on how to deal with his shin problem.
"We'll see, I don't know how long he'll be about for at this moment in time but he'll be fine."
Pearson added: "When one player has an injury problem there's an opportunity for someone else. I don't waste energy thinking about the negative aspects of him not being available at the start of the season. We can't change that so we just get on with it."