Multilingual Nayef Aguerd is fit and ready to do his talking on the pitch for West Ham United.
The Hammers’ No27 speaks six different languages and, after recovering from injury and illness, is ready to translate the form he showed for Morocco at the 2022 FIFA World Cup finals into a Claret and Blue shirt.
Aguerd joined West Ham in June after impressing for French clubs Dijon and Rennes, only to suffer a serious ankle injury that required surgery in pre-season.
The centre-back worked his way back in time to star for Morocco at the World Cup group stage, only to suffer a groin injury in the round of 16 win over Spain and later contracted COVID, ruling him out of the remainder of the tournament.
Mercifully, the 26-year-old has now fully recovered from injury and illness and, after helping the Hammers end a losing run in the Premier League at Leeds United and return to winning ways at Brentford in the Emirates FA Cup third round, is focused on Saturday’s Premier League fixture at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
I was very, very happy, especially after playing these games, typical English games, and I was also happy because we didn't lose.
Unfortunately, we didn't win against Leeds, but we had a good performance and result at Brentford, so hopefully we continue like this.
I will not say only bad things happened, because also the trust from the Club was here, which was a big move for me, and I was very happy.
Unfortunately, I had a very bad injury and was out for almost four months out of the pitch. But I came back, I worked very hard. To be honest, I wanted to play for West Ham and perform, but something we cannot control is the injury.
It has been a difficult six months, which is a lot of time, but I was lucky because it could have been worse.
I just needed to stay positive. To be honest, the first month was fairly difficult, but the Club let me go to Morocco to see my family, to stay close with my family and my friends, and that helped me a lot to come back quick and very, very strong.
I could go in my mind just play the World Cup and I played a few games before the World Cup, so I'm very happy about that.
I'm fit. I came back before Arsenal but I was not fit to play. I've lost a lot of weight because of the COVID and I was speaking also with the manager and told him like I'm not fit to play a Premier League game. I worked a lot these last few weeks and now I’m fit.
To be honest, I don't go out a lot, so I don't see a lot of West Ham fans in person, but I can see in social media that they keep sending messages.
Especially when I was injured, they sent me a lot of messages to encourage me and to say ‘we are with you and we are just waiting for you to come back’, so you can feel this power of positivity from them and I hope to carry on like this and give my best on the pitch.
It's not easy to change the country but today I'm 26-years-old, so I went out from my home when I was really young, just 12-years-old, so I knew how to adapt and everything is good.
The Premier League is a tough league with lots of intensity, but that's why I came here, to help me to progress and to give my best in every game, so I am very happy to start to play again.
I'm good with everyone. We have French players, so I speak French with them. We have Spanish players like Pablo and Manu and I speak Spanish, so I'm trying to speak Spanish with them, and also I speak English in the changing room with everyone.
I speak my mother tongue, Darija, with is spoken in Morocco, Classic Arabic, French, English and Spanish also.
So, I'm just trying to be funny and if they need me, I’m here, but on the pitch we just need to win. I can be very funny and nice, but on the pitch I’m not nice!
We need to be fully focused, because in our position as defenders we need to be focused, otherwise we will concede a lot of goals. Now, as I told you, in the changing room I am a different person, I love to listen to music and to have jokes with everyone, but when I put my feet on the pitch I am totally focus
For me, every game is important to win.
I want to say even if we win at Wolves, then we lose another game, it is not what we want, so we need to be focused on every game and to take a maximum of points.
We go there with our personality to try to win. It will not be easy, like every game in the Premier League, but we'll give our best to bring the three points.
We said before the Brentford game, ‘we need a win to lift our confidence, because it is low’. It’s very important because we have young players in the squad, so the win was fantastic and there were some smiles in the changing room after the game.
It’s good to have a win, especially because we are in a bad situation. We need to play like we did against Brentford, like every game is a final.
