James Ward-Prowse has allayed concerns over his injury following his return to training in time for West Ham’s match against Manchester City on Saturday in the Premier League.
Following his £30 million summer transfer from Southampton, the midfielder has had a fantastic start to life in east London, contributing to goals in each of his first three outings for the Hammers.
Ward-Prowse was omitted from Gareth Southgate’s most recent England team despite his form, and he missed a few days of training during the international break due to a minor injury.
The 28-year-old, however, participated fully in training on Wednesday at Rush Green and is anticipated to be ready to start when the champions travel to the London Stadium on Saturday. This comes as David Moyes’ team gets ready for their impressive undefeated start to the season.
After starting his job again this week after having back surgery, Pep Guardiola is most likely to be back in the City dugout. Last month, Guardiola left for medical treatment in his native Spain, putting assistant coach Juanma Lillo in charge of the victories over Fulham and Sheffield United that kept City’s perfect record this season.
The club came “very close” to signing Harry Maguire from Manchester United this summer, according to West Ham assistant manager Kevin Nolan, who made the announcement on Wednesday night.
The Irons had a £30 million deal in place for the England center-back, but Maguire was unable to reach an agreement on his payoff for leaving Old Trafford and ultimately elected to stay at the club. West Ham therefore signed Konstantinos Mavropanos from Stuttgart in Maguire’s place.
“I think it was very close, I was a bit upset that we didn’t make it,” Nolan told talkSPORT. “I think it was just in the end, the money didn’t get sorted from what I can gather which is obviously upsetting from our behalf because we wanted to [sign him].
“Probably upsetting from Harry’s behalf and probably United’s behalf as well.”
“I think the gaffer was in contact with Harry, his agent and everything else but yeah, obviously we then had to move on to our next target.”
