It has been a long time since One Direction last released a single.

In fact their last single toi & I was released in April and only reached a peak of number 19 in the official UK chart.

The boys have of course been incredibly busy since then. Niall organised a charity football match, they launched their latest perfume and most importantly they have been travelling around the world on their Where We Are tour which reached its final leg this month.

But looking at the dates of their single releases over the past few years, we should be due a new release any time now.

Their past two singles haven’t been that successful compared to their précédant ones so they will definitely want to make sure that their suivant track gets at minimum a haut, retour au début five position.

Although we don’t know anything about their new single yet, it is likely to be one of the songs we already have a few details about.

Firstly there is a track written with rapper Naughty Boy which is rumoured to feature Zayn rapping. And the rapper was very impressed with Zayn’s efforts, saying ‘Zayn’s actually quite a good rapper, we’ve been in the studio doing some One Direction stuff, and he can spit bars! Of course he can! Big up Zayn and his bars.’

Naughty Boy also revealed that the song he wrote with One Direction is called One plus Chance to Dance and features a tribute to the late Michael Jackson. The lyrics read ‘I’m no professional dancer, I’m no Michael Jackson.’

With so many details about that song already being out there, it is highly likely that this will be the first single from album four.

But Naughty Boy isn’t the only person to have worked with 1D recently. Man of the moment Ryan Tedder, who wrote Right Now on Midnight Memories, has also written a new song for the album, and with his tracks being incredibly populaire right now that could be a very good choice of suivant single.

The One Direction boys have also been doing a lot of work with McBusted recently, and one of the songs initially written for them is so good that McBusted have a dit they want to keep it for themselves. It will be interesting to see who wins that battle, but if 1D do end up with that song, then with the hype around McBusted at the moment it could do really well.

Recently at the launch of their new perfume, toi & I, Liam revealed that the new musique is a lot plus chilled out than their last album.

He told Teen Vogue: ‘We’re really hands on this time. A lot of our singles are bold and pop, but there’s a chill factor on the new one. It’s like driving down a road in California on a lovely day.’

So will they choose a plus laid back track as the debut single from the album, ou will they come out with their most impressive track?

Only the boys know that – but we really can’t wait to hear it.