QPR defender James Perch has said he hopes to back in first team contention before the new year.
The former-Newcastle man suffered a dislocated knee in the Hoops victory over Hull City in August, and says that while he's keen to get back into the thick of it, he's just thankful the injury wasn't worse.
Speaking to GetWestLondon about his recovery, Perch said: "It's going well. When I first did it and got home after the game my knee was the size of a house and I feared the worst. I thought I was going to be out for the season. But after a scan and an x-ray and stuff they said I'd only be out for three or four months.
"We haven't really set a return date yet. Because the the injury isn't straightforward we didn't want to pick a game or a certain time, we just have to see how it goes and I'm just going to keep working hard and play it by ear.
"I think it'll be this side of the new year, that's what we've kind of said. we haven't set a date but I want to get back as quick as I can and so do the medical staff so as long as it's before new year that'll be great, because at first it looked I was going to miss the whole season.
"It was frustrating because the club were doing well, we'd just beaten Hull, the game that I got injured in. It's frustrating but I'm trying to take the positives out of it. There's been three international breaks in the time I've been injured so I haven't actually missed that much football. It could have certainly happened at a worse time than it did, so I'm seeing that as a positive and hopefully back for the majority of the season."
After the clash with the Tigers, manager Ian Holloway hailed Perch for playing on despite the huge amount of pain he was in, and the defender laughed saying that his boss wasn't happy.
Describing the amount of pain he was in, Perch said: "When I went down, our physio actually ran past me and ran to Scowen who was down at the same time, because I went through him and (David) Meyler, so he didn't think it was that bad!
"People who were at the game could see the gaffer and the medical staff going mad on the sidelines trying to get me off!" he laughed.
"He assessed me and thought it was bad, but because we had two players down the rule is that you don't have to go off, so I stayed on. If he'd have taken me off the pitch he wouldn't have let me back on, but because I stayed on it was up to me."
