West Ham United are just a day away from a return to action when they take on League One side Cambrdige United in a friendly.
After not playing since the defeat to Leicester City on Saturday, November 12, due to the break for the World Cup, the Hammers have three friendly matches before their season officially gets back underway on Monday, December 26 in the Premier League away at league leaders Arsenal.
First up, is a visit to the Abbey Stadium to play Cambridge on Tuesday before flying out to Italy for a clash against Serie A side Udinese at the Dacia Arena on Saturday. A week later, they are back in London, taking on Premier League rivals Fulham at Craven Cottage.
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Ahead of their run of friendlies, West Ham’s players returned to training on Thursday as the majority of the squad, who are not at the World Cup, look to get back to full fitness ahead of the season starting up in three weeks’ time.
After returning to the club’s Rush Green training ground, West Ham have released some photos and a video of the club’s return to training, giving a glimpse of how David Moyes’ side’s preparations are going.
As we look ahead to the trip to Cambridge, here are five things we have spotted from West Ham training from the footage released so far.
Cornet is back
A big boost going into the second half of the season is a return to training for winger Maxwel Cornet, who has not played in over two months due to injury.
Forced off in the first half of the win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on his full league debut, Cornet's breakthrough in the time was harshly cut short and he has not played since, having had a setback shortly after initially returning to training from his calf issue.
While Cornet has only played nine times for the Hammers, he is the club's joint-top assister this season with three in all competitions, as well as winning two penalties and harshly seeing a last-gasp equaliser away at Chelsea wrongly denied by VAR in September.
David Moyes bought him from Burnley for £17.5million in the summer to add goals and assists to the side and in his limited minutes of playing, he has shown signs of doing so and his return will give West Ham a significant boost.
Academy players get chance
With five members of the first-team squad away on World Cup duty, Moyes has turned to some academy players to train with the senior players to make up the numbers.
Under-21s duo Krisztian Hegyi, Levi Laing and Keenan Forson were all pictured in training and it could put them among the front-runners of the youth players to be included in the mid-season friendlies.
With Kurt Zouma injured and centre-backs Nayef Aguerd and Thilo Kehrer having been away during the World Cup, Moyes is low on numbers at the heart of defence and it could give Laing and the club's other young defenders a chance for some minutes alongside the likes of Craig Dawson and Angelo Ogbonna.
Zouma latest
Last month, it was announced that French centre-back Zouma had undergone knee surgery, making it unclear when the Hammers' former Chelsea defender will return to action.
One boost shown at the start of the video was Zouma arriving at Rush Green and walking without any crutches, a boost in terms of when he may return to action.
It is unclear how severe his injury is, but it is a blow for Moyes, who has started Zouma in 14 of West Ham's 15 Premier League games this term.
Forson goal
If Greenwich-born Forson's hopes were to impress first-team coaches while training with his more senior colleagues, he will have taken a good step towards it after scoring in a small-sided game in training.
During one clip, after a shot from Pablo Fornals hit the post, Forson latched onto the shot and finished past goalkeeper Darren Randholph from close range. He was then involved in a good team move that led to an Aaron Cresswell goal.
Considering he has been used in first-team training just days before the trip to Cambridge, you would suspect he is in line for potential minutes there.
No Emerson
One player not spotted in either the pictures or video from training so far was Italian left-back Emerson.
The Italian defender did not link up with his country's squad for their friendlies last month against Austria and Albania, with the majority of his West Ham minutes to date coming outside of the Premier League.
Whether he was injured or just not pictured, Emerson did suffer a broken nose injury shortly before the break during the Carabao Cup defeat to Blackburn Rovers so his omission may be down to that.
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