West Ham United vs Liverpool - Dimitri Payet in contention for West Ham return

Posted Friday, January 01, 2016 by PA

West Ham boss Slaven Bilic is weighing up whether to throw Dimitri Payet straight in against Liverpool despite the midfielder being a month ahead of schedule in his fitness battle.

French playmaker Payet, one of the stars of West Ham's impressive start to the season, was expected to be sidelined until February with the ankle injury he suffered against Everton in November.

But the 28-year-old has made such a rapid recovery that he could be pitched in from the start when Liverpool visit Upton Park on Saturday.

Bilic said: "Is he in contention to start? Yes.

"He is back, he's been training with us for a couple of days and depending on how he does today I'm expecting him to be in the squad and available for the game.

"We will see how much he is going to participate in the game, but he is back and it's a great boost for us."

Winger Victor Moses and defender Winston Reid have also recovered from injuries after a couple of months on the sidelines.

But Bilic feels they are unlikely to be ready to face the Reds and has pencilled the duo in to return against Wolves in the FA Cup the following weekend.

"Victor Moses and Winston Reid are back, it's a good situation for us," he added. "They are lacking fitness but they have started training with us.

"But for the Liverpool game, no, probably not. They only just started training with us so they will be more for the FA Cup game. That will be good recovery for them."

Bilic will also check on the fitness of left-back Aaron Cresswell, who missed Monday's 2-1 win over Southampton with a hamstring problem.

Meanwhile, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp laughed off Sam Allardyce's "soft German" jibe, joking he had been called much worse.

Sunderland boss Allardyce made the comment after Klopp reacted angrily to a challenge from Jeremain Lens on Mamadou Sakho in Wednesday night's 1-0 Liverpool victory at the Stadium of Light.

Klopp stood by his claim that Lens should have been sent off rather than shown a yellow card for the tackle.

The Reds boss was in a jovial mood ahead of Saturday's clash with the Hammers, and said with a chuckle: "Maybe hammer is more my second name than soft."

Responding to Allardyce, he said: "It's absolutely not a problem. A lot of people have said worse things about me. Soft German, I think it's the first time somebody said this about me, so (that's) cool.

"If you see the situation again then you know that I was not too wrong in judging this moment. Mama is still alive and everything is okay but, in my opinion, situations like this had to be judged differently than other things.

"If you compare yellow cards in a game and think, 'this is yellow', then what's this? That's all I want to say. But I had no arguments with the bench of Sunderland."

Had things worked out differently, Klopp could have been in the home dugout for Saturday's clash at Upton Park.

West Ham co-owner David Sullivan revealed this week he approached Klopp in the summer about becoming Hammers boss but the German wanted a break after leaving Borussia Dortmund.

"In the summer I was not available," said the German.

"I was sure I needed a few days for myself without thinking too much about football. That's what I did.

"I'm a lucky guy so there was a lot of interest from different clubs. If West Ham will talk about this then they can do it. It's a really good club but it was the wrong time for all the clubs, so nothing to do with West Ham or what I think about West Ham."

Liverpool could potentially have striker Daniel Sturridge back for Saturday's match.

Sturridge declared himself fit and available on Boxing Day but, because of the England man's history of injury problems, Klopp was determined not to rush him.

Neither James Milner nor Divock Origi will be fit and Klopp must wait on midfielders Joe Allen and Jordan Henderson.

Allen missed the Sunderland match through illness while captain Henderson was substituted in the second half because of pain in his heel.