West Ham star Maxwel Cornet has admitted his injury comeback fears and thanked the club as he takes the first step in his long-awaited return.
Cornet has been out for five months but had barely featured prior to that following his £17.5m summer arrival at West Ham.
The pacy and versatile winger was expected to be out for a couple of weeks when he was forced off with a calf injury on his first Premier League start for West Ham back at the start of October.
But he has not been seen in the claret and blue since.
The Ivorian returned to training recently, though, and David Moyes confirmed he is finally free from pain in his calf following specialist treatment in France.
Moyes gave an update on Cornet in his pre-Brighton press conference, saying: “Maxi is coming on. We’ll see how he is and hopefully we’ll get them closer to the first team.”
Part of that process was Cornet featuring for West Ham’s Under 21s on Friday night at home against Man City.
The winger started the match at the Rush Green Stadium, and lasted 45 minutes in a pre-planned substitution.
There was good and bad news about the comeback, with the latter being that Cornet may – understandably – still be some way off first team action.
Now West Ham star Cornet has admitted his injury comeback fears and thanked the club as he takes first step in long-awaited return.
Taking to his Instagram stories following his comeback, Cornet admitted his rare injury left him feeling apprehensive about his return.
“A little apprehensive but at the end I would like to thank God and all the West Ham staff for this 45 minutes in the bag,” Cornet said on Instagram stories alongside a prayer emoji.
“We keep going.”
Earlier this week Cornet also posted on Instagram his gratitude to be back training with his West Ham teammates, saying: “Good to be back.”
It is good to see you back in the Hammers colours Maxi!
The former Lyon man’s power and pace could be a huge difference maker for West Ham during the run-in.
Let’s hope his comeback gives him more confidence and he can slowly build himself back up to peak form and fitness over the last two and a half months of the campaign.