West Ham United manager David Moyes has provided injury updates on four of his players ahead of facing Liverpool on Wednesday night.
The Hammers have issues at centre-back in terms of numbers. Kurt Zouma has missed the last two matches with an illness, while Craig Dawson was also absent for Sunday’s 1-1 draw away at Southampton with a dead leg suffered in their home win over Fulham nine days ago, which was agitated when coming off the bench in the win over Anderlecht last Thursday.
Moyes remains unsure as to whether or not either will feature, although Zouma has returned to training ahead of the trip to Anfield, with late calls to be made on both men.
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“Kurt [Zouma] has done a little bit of training, don’t know if it is going to make him right yet,” said Moyes. “Craig Dawson, we’re unsure about. Probably not much change from where we were on Sunday.”
Winger Maxwel Cornet will be absent for the meeting with Jurgen Klopp’s side after missing the last four matches with a calf issue suffered in the 2-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers at the start of the month, his full league debut for the club. However, Moyes expects the Ivory Coast international to return to training later this week.
“Maxi [Cornet] has had a little bit of a calf strain, he’s getting close,” explained Moyes. “He’s probably going to start training this week but he’s not ready yet, no.”
The absence of £30million summer signing and Moroccan international Nayef Aguerd is slowly coming to an end, with the former Stade Rennais defender returning to light training recently.
Moyes is pleased with his progress, although he is still to return to full training. However, Moyes does think Aguerd will definitely play before next month’s World Cup in Qatar starts.
“Really good news that he’s on his way back, we bought him in as a key player for us and he gets injured in just about his first pre-season game,” added Moyes.
“Really difficult for us but he’s very close, he’s started training. He’s not fully integrated with the players yet as far as that goes but he’s getting closer to playing again.
“I definitely think he could feature before the World Cup, but I couldn’t tell you if it’s a week’s time or two weeks' time quite yet because he’s had no match practice, he’s not been involved in the Premier League yet. I think it’s more likely we will maybe look to get him games in Europe or [under-21s] games or something like that before we get him in the Premier League.”
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