Niclas Füllkrug is ready to return to the West Ham United matchday squad after recovering from the hamstring injury that has sidelined him for the past two-and-a-half months.
The Germany international centre-forward was hurt during Head Coach Graham Potter’s first game in charge on 10 January this year, an Emirates FA Cup third-round defeat at Aston Villa.
The 32-year-old has worked hard to return to action and will take his seat on the team coach to Wolverhampton for Tuesday’s Premier League fixture with Wanderers at Molineux.
However, the game will come too soon for another player who suffered a hamstring injury in that FA Cup tie at Villa Park, winger Crysencio Summerville, who is still working his way back to fitness at Rush Green training ground.
“Summerville, no [he won’t be available], but Füllkrug has been training with the group and will more than likely be in the squad,” Potter revealed, speaking in his pre-match press conference on Monday morning. “So we've just got to obviously build his minutes up in terms of what he's able to do. He hasn't played competitive football for a while and he's had a fairly significant injury, but he's training well and he's building his fitness up, so he'll be in the squad.
“You can do all the rehab in the world and you can train as well, but you can't beat and you can't almost replicate Premier League competitive minutes, so that's the next stage for him. But whatever role we can give him, he'll do it as best as he can, and then it's good to have him back in the squad.
“He's got unique qualities and as a Head Coach you want as many good players available as possible. So he's done well to work himself back with real good support from the medical team here and now we've got nine games to go at the end of the season, two months to really push and to get as many points as we can, that's the ambition, and I think he can help us with that.”
While Füllkrug’s lack of match minutes meant he missed Germany’s two-legged UEFA Nations League quarter-final with the Netherlands, seven senior players were away with their respective national teams during the March window.
Potter has now reassembled his squad at Rush Green and believes all of his internationals, save long-term absentee Michail Antonio, will be fit to face Wolves on Tuesday.
“[We had] a few bumps and bruises and a bit of fatigue from internationals, but we've got another training session now (on Monday) and everybody's in a decent place and we’ve got a relatively full squad apart from Summerville [and Antonio],” he concluded.
