Conor McGregor is now less than two weeks away from his chance at redemption against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264.

The pair are currently tied at one bout apiece - and will meet for a third time in Las Vegas on July 10 in an attempt to settle their long-standing rivalry. McGregor got the better of Poirier in their first fight back in September 2014, when he stopped the American inside of two minutes in a featherweight contest.

However, 'The Diamond' evened the score in January of this year at UFC 257. The Louisiana-native proved to be the more well-rounded fighter on that occasion, mixing his striking and grappling effectively as he secured a second-round finish against the Irishman.

Although he ultimately ended the bout with punches, it was the debilitating calf kicks Poirier managed to repeatedly land on McGregor that proved to be most telling. By weakening the base of 'The Notorious', Poirier was able to take away much of the threat offered by McGregor's own strikes.

Simply put, Poirier had evolved as a competitor in the more than six years that had passed since his first fight with McGregor. This is something that Conor's long-time training partner Artem Lobov believes may have caught his friend slightly off-guard.

"To be honest, it’s not even that he wasn’t fully focused or anything, he just probably didn’t give Dustin the respect that he deserved," Lobov revealed in a recent interview with BJPenn.com. "He was more thinking about boxing Manny (Pacquiao) straight after the fight and was already getting ready for that because he saw that as the challenge, and Dustin was just going to be a warmup fight. Obviously, it didn’t work out that way. Dustin did his homework, and he’s improved a lot," said Lobov, per mmafighting.com.

The Russian, who himself fought seven times inside the UFC Octagon, paid tribute to Poirier's strategy during the rematch - singling out his leg kicks for particular praise.

"If you look at the second fight, it was kind of developing how the first fight went," Lobov said. "That’s what I expected. The only thing that made a difference was the leg kicks. It’s not even that he wasn’t training (to defend) leg kicks, but those specific leg kicks are very unique. They’re unique in a way when you spar in training and you’re wearing shin pads, you won’t even feel those kicks.

"You will check the way Conor was checking, which is not lifting the check, but actually going into the kick, and that works perfectly normally. Especially with shin pads you won’t even realize there’s anything doing damage. But once you take them off, that little muscle that’s right beside your shin bone, it’s an issue," admitted Lobov.

Lobov, though, firmly believes that McGregor won't make the same mistake again this time around, backing his pal to put on a clinical performance.

"Now that Conor is aware of that [the leg kicks], I see the fight going the way it was already going to go, the way the first fight went. I see Conor stopping Dustin early in this fight. I see Conor stopping him in the first round."

Throughout his career, McGregor has been vocal about his commitment to making any necessary adjustments following a defeat. He famously devised a fresh game plan to avenge his submission loss to Nate Diaz back in 2016 - and will, no doubt, be intent on repeating the dose against Poirier. We don't have long to wait to find out whether he can get the job done.