ExWHUemployee has revealed that injured West Ham United defender Nayef Aguerd is training on grass again as he aims to be fit before the World Cup.
Before he had even played a competitive game for the Hammers, the £30m summer signing from Rennes sadly picked up a serious ankle injury that has kept him from action ever since.
As a result, it was been unclear as to whether or not he will even make his debut for the Irons before potentially going away with Morocco for the winter World Cup in Qatar.
However, in more positive news for West Ham, Ex has said that even if he doesn’t play for the club before then, he could potentially use the international tournament as a way of rebuilding his fitness before hopefully playing a key role for the team in the new year.
When discussing the player on The West Ham Way podcast, Ex said (9:35): “Now Aguerd is actually back on grass now. So he’s spent a couple of weeks doing fitness work in the gym. He’s now moved over to grass work, so it’s not involving a ball just yet, but it’s getting sort of the fitness on the grass.
“Apparently, his ankle has been hurting him a bit during this time. But he will step up his fitness campaign this week, with the hope of eventually moving on to ball work.
“Now, the deadline, the sort of estimated recovery time was just before the World Cup. Obviously, our last game is against Leicester on the 13th of November. So that’s just over a month away. So it’s kind of touch and go wherever he’ll figure for us before the World Cup break.
But he’s his ultimate aim and I guess, understandably, is to try and get fit in time to be able to play in the World Cup for Morocco. Which actually isn’t necessarily a bad thing for West Ham, because he could use the World Cup [to get fit].
“Minimum, he’s gonna get three games there for Morocco, obviously, depending on whether they advanced the next stages. And he will get three games closer to match fitness, which won’t be at the expense of playing him in a West Ham side to build match fitness.
“So he’ll almost get like a bonus three games there at the World Cup if he can get fit for us. And then hopefully, by Boxing Day, when we then play Arsenal, he’ll be able to be involved in that.”