David Moyes says both Maxwel Cornet and Craig Dawson have an outside chance of featuring in West Ham United’s Premier League match with AFC Bournemouth on Monday.
The Irons welcome the Cherries to London Stadium on Monday evening and could do so with defender Dawson and summer signing Cornet back in the squad.
The manager revealed that the Ivory Coast international is back working on the training pitches after recovering from a calf problem, while Dawson is hoping to return after being forced off in the UEFA Europa Conference League Group B win over RSC Anderlecht at London Stadium.
Moyes also gave an update on Lucas Paquetá’s fitness after the Brazilian missed Wednesday's match at Liverpool with an upper body injury he suffered at Southampton last weekend.
“Hopefully both Maxwel and Craig will have a chance [against Bournemouth],” Moyes said in his pre-match press conference. “Maxwel has been on the grass, but it might come a bit quick for him.
"Lucas Paquetá, we don’t think his injury is as serious as we feared at first. I know the injury is one that is not normal for football players. From that point of view, we need to treat it slightly different. Hopefully we will get him back shortly.”
With the Hammers’ congested fixture schedule seeing the side play three games in just seven days next week, Moyes admitted his squad selection will take his players’ freshness into consideration.
He added: “I think we’ve got seven games left between now and the World Cup break. We need to think about how we use the players well enough, and who we think is ready for the job.
“You always want to try and play with your best team but quite often, with the current situation, you’re having to change things to keep things a bit fresher.
“We’re trying to give the players recovery time between the games and then getting them ready for the next one. If you look back to our best season a couple of years ago, we were doing Saturday-Saturday games, which gave us time to properly prepare the team for every game.
“We gave a pretty good go of it last year and we’re giving a pretty good go of it this year, but it’s a difficult schedule for everybody.”
