Conor McGregor's preparations for his trilogy fight with Dustin Poirier appear to have possibly taken a minor blow with a suspected staph infection, UFC fans have spotted in one of the Irishman's most recent photos.

There are just a handful of days left until the duo meet for a third time on July 10 at UFC 264, but the image in question has raised eyebrows in some corners of the MMA world.

McGregor came out victorious in their first clash, a featherweight bout at UFC 178, with a first-round knockout of Poirier.

'The Diamond' claimed revenge, however, at UFC 257 earlier this year with a second-round knockout of McGregor.

A series of heavy punches and kicks proved to be the decisive factor in the American's win, and now MMA followers are looking forward to the third meeting in the Octagon.

There are 10 days to go until McGregor and Poirier meet in the highly-anticipated clash at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, but concerns are being raised over a mysterious mark on McGregor's left elbow.

Images shared on the 32-year-old's Instagram account, and enhanced by UFC fans on social media, show a suspected staph infection.

McGregor is yet to confirm whether he is actually dealing with an infection or whether it is simply a nasty scrape.

If the pictures are accurately revealing a staph infection, though, it may impact McGregor's upcoming fight and hinder his abilities on the big night.

The image going round has certainly caused a mixed reaction in the MMA world, with some saying it looks concerning and could impact McGregor come fight night, whilst others are trying to play it down.

'It’s an elbow thrown to something, that’s what happens,' one user replied, while another responded by saying 'He's in training camp, could be friction burn from grappling on the mats, or from elbowing the heavy bag'.

'Good eye', Definitely iodine I'm surprised you're the first to notice this outta the couple million ppl who seen this picture tbh' and 'That looks to be staph for sure' were just some other replies sharing the Twitter users concern, which can be seen here.

The two fighters set to enter the Octagon on July 10 have different personas in comparison to their meeting six years ago.

Poirier has arguably evolved more so than McGregor and Conor's long-time training mate Artem Lobov believes this may have been the surprising factor.

He said: "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.

"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."