Tomas Soucek is set to return to the West Ham team for the Hammers trip to Manchester United on Saturday afternoon.
Czech Republic captain Soucek was forced to miss West Ham's last two matches, the 2-0 win over Norwich and 3-2 loss to Leeds United, due to contracting Covid but the midfielder is due to return to training this week.
Soucek had started 67 consecutive Premier League matches for West Ham until his absence against the Canaries, missing just 11 minutes of action in that run.
Manuel Lanzini dropped into central midfield alongside Declan Rice and performed admirably against Norwich when given time on the ball but struggled with the ferocious press of Marcelo Bielsa's team.
Soucek's period of isolation is set to end this week and the midfielder will return to training, David Moyes confirmed.
He could be available for the trip to Old Trafford, however, his manager provided a note of caution about all players who come back after testing positive for Covid.
"He could be in contention but everybody coming back from Covid you are not sure of their ability, how they are feeling what their symptoms are," Moyes said. "So those things make it very difficult to make a judgement."
Soucek is not the only Hammers player to have recently missed games due to Covid. Alex Kral, Michail Antonio, Pablo Fornals, Vladimir Coufal and Kurt Zouma have all had to sit games out but unlike other Premier League clubs, Moyes has been adamant his team will play on.
"Maybe we are not being tough enough, maybe I am not being tough enough in saying we could have done with the game against Norwich being off and we could have fought harder for it," he added.
"Maybe I will have to do that in the future because it put us under pressure to play today [Sunday]."
On the injury front, Mark Noble once again missed out at the weekend, however, football.london understands the club captain was close to being involved against Leeds.
Zouma is back in training after a six-week absence with a hamstring issue, however Moyes confirmed the centre-back was not close to making the team for the Leeds United clash due to his positive Covid result.
"Not at all, because he is only just recovering from Covid," the manager replied to questions about Zouma's availability on Sunday.
With another week of training, Zouma will be getting closer to a return and with a 13-day break between the match against Manchester United and Kidderminster in the FA Cup, the Frenchman is sure to be back in the side sooner rather than later.
