West Ham will make a decision over handing Samir Nasri a short term deal next week, Manuel Pellegrini has revealed.
The midfielder, who was a key figure in Pellegrini’s title winning side at Manchester City, is eligible to play football once again from January 1 after an 18 month doping ban.
Nasri, 31, has been training in east London since November in a bid to shed weight and prove his fitness to Pellegrini, who is looking to replace the attacking flair lost through injury to Jack Wilshere and Andriy Yarmolenko this summer.
Should they make the decision to add Nasri to the squad, the ex-Arsenal man is expected to sign a highly incentivised deal.
“Yes, we are going to take the decision probably next week,” Pellegrini said when asked about Nasri’s situation.
“Samir is working with us very well, he is reducing his weight, his mentality is to have a spot here in the squad so it is a decision we will make in the next days.”
Pellegrini has refused to comment on transfer rumours to this point, but admitted West Ham may need to do some business in January.
“I am happy with the squad,” he added. “I know that we need to replace players that probably will not play much more this season like Yarmolenko, Sanchez, Lanzini so we are calm, we will decide not now what we are going to do but we will decide.”
