Cech suffered the injury in the Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid and had an operation on 7 May but has been training during the early days of pre-season.

Speaking after the win at AFC Wimbledon on Saturday, Holland said:

‘He [Cech] is making very good progress and working as you would expect for a guy as professional as he is.

‘He is working ahead of schedule with [goalkeeper coach] Christophe Lollichon, not quite full goalkeeping work but he is well on course and hopefully it will not be too long before he can join in full-time training.’

The players, including those who exited the World Cup at the group stage, travel abroad today for their summer training camp with games in Austria, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Germany, and Cech’s progress in training will be monitored to see if he can take part in any of the games.

Holland also spoke about the opportunity this time of year gives to closely analyse young players who spent last season out on loan to decide whether a further loan is needed to aid their development. One such player is 20-year-old striker Patrick Bamford who scored against Wycombe last week and played the first half against Wimbledon.

‘When these players are out on loan we monitor them and part of my job as assistant is to watch them,’ Holland said. ‘I have games edited every week so I watch every kick they make and report back to the manager.

‘We watched Patrick closely last year and he had a good spell at MK Dons and then played at Derby where the level was a step up. He played mostly on the wing which probably suited Derby but probably didn’t really suit him, we see him more as a central striker, but he scored goals.

‘He got a goal on Wednesday night so we know he can score goals. What we will be looking at in the next few weeks is whether he can adapt other areas of his game and how he combines with top-level midfielders to see if he can make the step not just into the Premier League but into a Champions League team as well.

‘It is too early to say but part of this process every year is re-evaluating. His situation is similar to many players we have.’