Sam Allardyce has confirmed that West Ham United will not be signing El Hadji Diouf as he makes final preparations for the visit of Leicester City.
The manager took the decision based on the player's fitness levels against the fact he is hoping for better news on the injury front in the coming days and weeks. He also acknowledged that he had taken into account the depth of fan feeling on the matter.
Regarding the squad, Big Sam said that Robert Green and James Tomkins were back in contention after overcoming knee and groin injuries respectively. It remains to be seen whether either will be involved on Saturday while he is hopeful Matt Taylor and Carlton Cole will not be too far behind.
"Robert's recovery has come about two and a half weeks ahead of schedule and it is very pleasing to have those two players back and available for selection.
"It was a crisis last Monday by the fact that we had to put George Moncur, an 18-year-old on the bench and we only have five subs this year let alone seven. The limited resources were that if I had to make a substitution then it would have had to of been because someone was struggling rather than tactically. I didn't have a lot of players to choose from.
"What I will say is that the squad were tested to the full and came through with shining colours. It was a fantastic performance and a fantastic result at Brighton. Really when you are doing that on the back end of an injury crisis that shows the strength in depth of this squad in terms of quality. Not a lot of numbers but certainly a lot of quality."
BIG SAM ON LEICESTER TO COME ON WHUFC.COM AND WEST HAM TV