While many of his Chelsea colleagues depart this week on international duty Michael Essien will be returning to training at Cobham, although he confirms his absence from the Ghana team is only a temporary state of affairs.
The 27-year-old missed the World Cup as he recovered from a chronic knee problem. He was back for the new Barclays Premier League season but didn't play a part in Ghana's opening Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in Swaziland last month.
It was due to an agreement reached with then Ghana coach Milovan Rajevac who has since departed.
'I spoke to the manager and he told me he is going to give me a break to get my fitness back on track,' explains Essien, 'and whenever I feeling like going back I should go back.
'It is unfortunate that he left, and we shall see who comes in but I will go back.'
Reports from Ghana state that former Chelsea players Marcel Desailly and Gianfranco Zola, our ex-manager Luiz Felipe Scolari plus former Spurs boss Juande Ramos have all applied for the national coach's job. A decision is expected soon.
Meanwhile after two days rest, on Wednesday Essien will begin early preparation for Chelsea's next game away to Aston Villa, boosted by the weekend win over Arsenal.
The midfield powerhouse has spoken to Chelsea TV about finesse he has added to his game with several defence-splitting passes on view recently, and about the chance he had late in the game to make it 3-0. He was denied by Lukasz Fabianski.
'I think my passing is getting better, what I need to work on is my goal scoring,' Essien told the club's own channel.
'When you have the ball you have to be calm, and you have to look for the space before you receive the ball. I try to do that and I am getting my passes right.
'It was a good pass from Yury [Zhirkov],' he said of the Arsenal chance, 'and when I was about to shoot I saw the goalkeeper coming forward and closing the angle, so I tried to chip the ball over him and it was a good save.'
Chelsea's trip to Villa Park comes at the same moment as last season, straight after the October international break. It is a chance to improve on the last campaign when we lost the game 2-1.
'It is always difficult to go to Villa Park, they make it very difficult,' admits Essien.
'But we think about ourselves and how to go out there and get three points. The manager has told us to play the ball very quickly as soon as we have it and that's what we try to do.'
Michael Essien will be blogging again on the Official Chelsea Website tomorrow (Wednesday).
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