West Ham received a positive injury update with Jarrod Bowen expected to return to the squad for their crucial match against Liverpool today. The winger missed the previous match due to a knee issue but has resumed training and is likely to be available barring any setbacks.
However, there’s less optimistic news on the defensive front. Nayef Aguerd remains sidelined and won’t be ready for the Liverpool clash. There’s a possibility of Konstantinos Mavropanos returning, but his participation is subject to a late fitness test.
West Ham manager David Moyes confirmed the good news during a press conference on Friday. He stated, “Jarrod Bowen is back training, so there is a good chance he will be available. We will still have to monitor him up until kickoff to see how he is, but hopefully Jarrod is back and fit.”
While elaborating on defensive injuries, Moyes revealed, “We’ve got a couple of issues with our centre-halves. Nayef [Aguerd] won’t be available as he’s not ready yet. Dinos [Mavropanos] has got a chance, so we will need to see how he is, but again it’s really tight and a quick turnaround in regards to the game starting early. Hopefully he’ll will be fine.”
Despite potentially having most of the squad available, Moyes acknowledged the difficulties of balancing European and Premier League campaigns. West Ham is among the teams with the least amount of recovery time between matches this season.
He believes this demanding schedule has impacted player performance and results. “We’re eighth in the Premier League at the moment with four games to go and we’re just about to go into May,” Moyes said. “It’s an incredible position to be in for nearly all the season.
“We’ve also found ourselves competing in Europe; sometimes it doesn’t get mentioned, but we’ve probably played 12 or 13 games more than any of the teams who weren’t in Europe.”
Despite the challenges, Moyes remains focused on securing a European spot for the fourth consecutive year. He concluded, “From our point of view, we’re in there, we’re still in with a shout with four games to go and we’ll keep trying to make Europe and it would be a great achievement if we could do it four years in a row.”