Ayew an outside chance for Hammers

West Ham boss Slaven Bilic has been boosted by the return to training of club-record signing Andre Ayew – a former Sunderland target – ahead of schedule.

The Ghana forward, who joined the Hammers from Swansea in August for £20.5million, sustained a thigh injury half an hour into his debut against Chelsea.

Ayew rejoined his teammates on the training pitch on Monday and has an outside chance of being in the squad to face Sunderland tomorrow.

“We were expecting him back later, in December or late November, so we are delighted that he’s back and now we’re going to see,” said Hammers boss Bilic.

“He looks good in training and we’re going to try to prepare him for games as soon as possible.

“We have a couple of sessions before the game against Sunderland and then we’ll see.

“If we talk about Saturday I’m not going to rule it out, but it’s unlikely.”

Andy Carroll’s latest West Ham comeback has been delayed with no return in sight for the injury-plagued exNewcastle striker.

The 27-year-old, who has started just 38 Premier League matches in more than three years with the Hammers, picked up a knee problem in the Europa League tie against Romanian side Astra Giurgiu in August.

Bilic said: “Originally it was four to six weeks, but now it’s way longer than that so all that I can say is he’s working really hard, he’s progressing, but its slower than we expected.

‘He’s working hard and getting better every day, but unfortunately he’s still not ready to train with us.”