David Moyes issued a detailed update on West Ham United’s injured players ahead of Monday’s Emirates FA Cup fourth-round tie at Derby County.
The manager was asked for information on Maxwel Cornet, Danny Ings – who is cup-tied for the game at Pride Park Stadium – Gianluca Scamacca and Kurt Zouma.
None of the quartet are set to feature against the Rams, but Moyes is hopeful of seeing them all back in action before too long.
Winger Cornet has not played since injuring his calf in the home Premier League win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on 1 October, and the manager has since revealed that the Ivorian has been undergoing specialist treatment in France.
“Cornet has been back in France seeing the specialist for probably three or four weeks now and we’re hoping to have him back here on Monday and we’ll see where he is come Monday,” Moyes told journalists at his pre-match press conference at Rush Green training ground on Friday.
“It would be great [if he is ready to return to full training], but I don’t know if he’s going to walk in the building, get his gear on and go out and train right away. I’m not sure, to be honest, but the fact of the matter is we’re hoping he’s going to be very close to that.
“But even then, I probably need a couple of weeks’ training before we’re even getting close, so that’s the problem with it.”
Ings suffered a knee injury early in his debut appearance in the 2-0 Premier League win over Everton at London Stadium last weekend.
“Unfortunately, Danny has picked up an injury which was in the first 15 or 20 seconds of the game [after coming on as a substitute],” Moyes commented.
“We don’t think it’s that bad, and he’s cup-tied for this week anyway so we have a little bit of grace, but hopefully he’s not going to miss too much. He’s had an injection in his knee and hopefully he’ll get himself back ready to go quite quickly.”
Scamacca is receiving treatment for a knee injury that includes platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections, a form of regenerative medicine which uses the player’s own blood platelets to accelerate the healing process.
“Gianluca is fine,” Moyes explained. “He’s had his second PRP injection and is due to take his third one to come next Wednesday. My feeling is he’s doing OK.”
Zouma performed well in Saturday’s victory over Everton, helping the Hammers keep a first clean sheet in eight Premier League matches dating back to October, but has suffered an injury setback.
Moyes explained: “Kurt has got an injury [in his quad]. He overstretched and he flicked his foot to the right, which we think has tweaked it. He got it in the first half and played through it, but his thigh has swollen up badly at the top, so we think there is a small tear there, but we’re not sure until the blood goes away and it all sort of dies down.
“It’s another huge blow, because we’d just got him back and we got a decent result with him in the team.”
While four players remain unavailable, Moyes has enjoyed seeing Nayef Aguerd’s performances following the Morocco centre-back’s return from four months out with an ankle injury.
“If you're watching Aguerd now, you will see he is just beginning to grow into as well, so to get Maxi out near the start [of his West Ham career] and obviously have Gianluca and Danny Ings out at the moment, we’ve been a little bit unfortunate with those ones, really.
