West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic welcomes Andy Carroll and Winston Reid back into his matchday squad for Monday’s Premier League fixture with Huddersfield Town.
The Terriers make their first-ever visit to London Stadium with the Hammers eager to collect their first top-flight points of the 2017/18 campaign. And Bilic has been boosted by the availability of England centre forward Carroll and New Zealand defender Winston Reid, who have returned to full training from hip and hamstring injuries respectively.
However, three players will absent from the Croatian’s squad – the suspended Marko Arnautovic, Manuel Lanzini, who is still recovering from the knee problem he suffered at Newcastle United a fortnight ago, and Edimilson Fernandes, who suffered an ankle injury while on international duty with Switzerland.
“Carroll is OK,” Bilic told reporters at his pre-match press conference. “He’s been training for almost four weeks with us and he looks good. He will be in the squad definitely. We are playing Monday, but he’s back in the squad and will be for the game.
“Manu has a similar injury as the one he had before [in pre-season] but not the same level. He’s not ready for the game and he won’t be ready for a couple of weeks, maybe three weeks, but it’s between two and three.
“[He is] not [available] for Huddersfield and let’s be honest, it would be great if he came back for West Brom, but maybe he will miss two [games]. It’s nothing major.
“Winston Reid is back, so apart from Manu and Fernandes, who did his ankle when he was away with the Swiss national team, all the others are back.”
Joe Hart and Aaron Cresswell both returned fit and well from England duty, as did Jose Fonte (Portugal), James Collins (Wales), Arthur Masuaku (DR Congo), Declan Rice (Republic of Ireland U21), Cheikhou Kouyate (Senegal), Sead Haksabanovic (Montenegro), Chicharito (Mexico) and Andre Ayew (Ghana).
Pablo Zabaleta, Angelo Ogbonna, Sam Byram, Pedro Obiang, Mark Noble, Michail Antonio and Diafra Sakho all remained at Rush Green over the international break and are available for selection.
Huddersfield manager David Wagner will be without Slovenian midfielder Jon Gorenc Stankovic (knee), Jonathan Hogg (ankle) and defender Martin Cranie (knee), but German centre forward Collin Quaner is set to recover from a hip problem in time for Monday’s game.