West Ham boss Slaven Bilic is encouraged to see Alex Song’s ‘real’ form starting to emerge as the club give themselves until the end of the season to make a decision on his Hammers future.
On loan from Barcelona of course, Song’s long term injury problem, from which he is now medically fit, appears to have left him short of match fitness and he is yet to complete a game since returning to the side against Spurs.
He has played in the last three games and began to show signs that he may be on the way back against Swansea at the weekend.
The 28 year old – 29 next September – is looking for a three year deal although Bilic is believed to favour two years initially with a one year option.
But a source said: “We need to monitor his progress over the rest of the season and see where he is at the end of that. It was a nasty injury and he’s recovered well.
“We have everything crossed that he will come back to the sort of form we saw from him in the early part of last season which will make it an easy decision.
“It’s clear what we think of him from the fact that we took him on loan while he was still injured. We are watching his form closely.”
His fitness is a real problem – he’s obviously a good player but you can’t rely on him at the moment – that also goes for a couple of others, particularly Andy Carroll and Enner Valencia – keeping themselves fit is becoming a real issue!