Lucas Paquetá

Team News: Lucas Paquetá closing in on return

Lucas Paquetá could make a return to the West Ham United squad for Sunday’s Premier League derby with Crystal Palace.

The Brazil international has missed the team’s last five matches after suffering an injury in the 1-1 draw at Southampton on 16 October.

But after the No11 resumed training at Rush Green this week, Moyes is confident of being able to bring him back into the fold for the visit of the Eagles.

“Lucas Paquetá has been training,” the boss confirmed at his pre-match press conference. “He’s probably ready to be included in the squad. Whether he’s ready to play or not I don’t know, but I certainly think he could be involved.

“We’re beginning to get some injured players back. Nayef Aguerd has played a couple of games and got 90 minutes last night as well.  As everybody knows he was out for three months or so and we’re closer to getting him back.”

Moyes also spoke of the benefit of being able to rotate his squad for the UEFA Europa Conference League victory over FCSB in midweek – and even had the luxury of leaving some of his more experienced players at home with Group B already won.

“We’ve given the players a bit of a breather and we hope it bodes well for the next game,” he added. “A lot of them didn’t need to travel with us, but they earned it as they had to perform in games earlier in the season.

“They didn’t all start them but quite often they were coming off the bench to get results to win the group. Probably the most pleasing thing was that we ended up last night being able to give more youngsters a game.”

 

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