MAMADY SIDIBE will be aiming to bounce back from more than three years of injury heartache after completing yet another long battle to regain fitness.
First it was a knee ligament injury, then a ruptured Achilles tendon, not once but twice, and more recently a dislocated knee.
The popular Mali international has been desperately unlucky to suffer a succession of injury blows which limited him to a handful of appearances over the past few season.
Sidibe must have thought that his luck was about to change for the better when manager Tony Pulis surprisingly named him as a substitute against his former club Swansea City.
But within days of that appearance on the bench in the Premier League match at the Liberty Stadium in October 2011, he suffered another cruel setback in a reserve game at Port Vale.
A powerful striker, he made his entry into English football in the 2001-02 season with Swansea and his success in that campaign led to him making the move to Gillingham.
After three years at Priestfield Stadium, he was offered the chance to move to the Britannia Stadium by Pulis right at the end of his first reign in charge of the Club.
Sidibe enjoyed his most productive season with the Potters in the 2006-07 season but then he played his part in helping the Club to win promotion to the Premier League.
It was during that first campaign in the top flight that he suffered his initial injury setback, so beginning a long fitness battle that has run until the start of this season.