West Ham could be boosted by the return of Michail Antonio for Monday’s Premier League matchup with Aston Villa at London Stadium though any involvement is likely to be from the bench.
The influential Hammers front man has missed the last three matches after suffering a hamstring injury against Manchester City. He could have made a comeback against Sheffield United last time out by David Moyes played it patiently as Antonio has a history of hamstring issues.
Moyes has no fresh injury concerns heading into the game with Ryan Fredericks expected to be fine having missed out on the squad at Bramall Lane last Sunday with a slight knock.
Andriy Yarmolenko is the only Hammers player certainly out of the game tonight after his positive test for coronavirus during the international break with the Ukrainian expected to be back in contention for the home game against Manchester United provided he gives a negative covid test.
West Ham have lost just one of their last seven Premier League games heading into the visit of Vill to Stratford and Moyes was in buoyant mood at his press conference on Friday afternoon.
“I’ve been really pleased with the way the players have gone about it,” the Scot said.
“We’ve picked up where we left off from last season, and if anything I think we’ve shown much more quality and we’re playing better.
“We’ve had a lot of confidence really from the start. We’ve felt as if we’ve played well and we’ve been improving, which is what I want us to do.
“I see the daily improvement in training. I see the standards improving and, with that, our victories have come and we’ve got some big points from what has been a really difficult opening period of fixtures.”
West Ham could go fifth in the table on Monday night if they pick up three points at Aston Villa and here is the squad that is available to do it.
Goalkeepers: Lukasz Fabianski, Darren Randolph, David Martin
Defenders: Vladimir Coufal, Ryan Fredericks, Fabian Balbuena, Angelo Ogbonna, Issa Diop, Aaron Cresswell, Arthur Masuaku, Ben Johnson, Craig Dawson.
Midfielders: Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek, Mark Noble, Robert Snodgrass, Manuel Lanzini, Pablo Fornals.
Forwards: Said Benrahma, Michail Antonio, Sebastien Haller, Jarrod Bowen.
