Michael Kightly reveals date for his Wolves return

Michael Kightly today handed Wolves a massive boost after revealing he will return to full training within two weeks and hopes to be fit for the start of the season.

The 24-year-old winger, who has been plagued by injury since March, 2009, is well down the road to full recovery from chronic inflammation of his patella tendons following ankle and hip injuries that required surgery.

And the much-missed former England Under-21 international is ready to step up his workload to give himself the chance to put himself in boss Mick McCarthy's plans for the big kick-off on August 14 against Stoke.

"I expect to be ready in a couple of weeks," said Kightly, who was at St Paul's Primary School in Tipton yesterday at present football medals to the youngsters.

"I feel good. There are no symptoms whatsoever now so I'm really pleased. Come the start of the season I will be ready."

Kightly, who made just three starts before injuring his foot last November against Birmingham, can at last see his reward after painstaking months in rehabilitation which brought trips to Spain and the United States in a bid to find a cure to the pain in his knees.

"Being injured is a horrible thing," he said. "I've struggled to deal with it sometimes, it can be very frustrating, but now I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

"I've been training every day throughout the summer - I've hardly had any time off. The training I've been doing has, of course, been very different to the training done by the rest of the boys because I've had to catch up with their fitness. It's been more intense."

Kightly has seen Wolves' new signings and believes they will intensify the already strong competition.

"The gaffer has made some good signings and that's got to be good news for the squad," he said. "It keeps you on your toes. If there's no competition for places you can become stale."

And Kightly backed Wolves to build on last season's Premier League survival.

"To stay up in your second season is always hard but I'm confident with the players we can," he said.