The Scottish left-winger has not featured in the side since the start of the year when he was surprisingly transfer listed and then suffered ligament damage a week later.

He was not expected to regain fitness before the end of the season but has made a superb recovery and has been playing reserve team football in recent weeks. Now he could play against Arsenal on Sunday to complete a remarkable rehabilitation.

Boss Roy Keane said: "Ross has trained very well this week and he was very good in an eleven versus eleven game that we organised in training.

"So he could very well come into contention for the Arsenal game."

Wallace remains on the transfer list for the moment and although there has been interest in him, once it was known he was approaching fitness, the winger was not interested in a touted move to North American side Toronto.

The young Scot told the Echo: "I think it's a bit early for me to be thinking about a move over there at this stage of my career."

Keane added: "As far as the transfer list is concerned at this moment in time Ross remains on it, as does Liam Miller and David Connolly. But we have to see how things pan out.

"Liam Miller, for example, has done very well to get himself back in contention for the first team and he's been playing games for us. Now we've got Ross doing very well, so we'll just look to get to the end of this season and look at things again after that."