Club hopeful that midfielder will step up his return from hamstring injury by training next week.

It is hoped that Crewe Alexandra midfielder Billy Bingham will return to training next week as he steps up his recovery from a hamstring injury.

The club’s summer signing from Dagenham and Redbridge initially suffered the muscle strain away at Wigan Athletic back in August and after attempting to come back after three and half weeks, he suffered a set-back in his rehab and that added another couple of weeks to his recovery.

After suffering the set-back, the medical department at the club have remained cautious with the central midfielder but it is hoped that he will return to training next week.

Manager Steve Davis told crewealex.net: “We are hoping that Billy will be able to re-join the group sometime next week.

“Overall he has been out for around six weeks. He felt okay after three and half weeks and tried to come back but he felt a tweak in it again, so as a precaution we took him out.

“Rob (Sharp) has been cautious with him because when we do get him back, we want him to be back for good. We don’t want him to break down again and to lose him for a longer period of time.

Steve added: “It will be good to have him back with us and with Jonah also coming back, we will have a full compliment of midfielders to choose from. “