I am delighted that Cheikhou Kouyate will be back in the squad for the game against Southampton today.
He did individual training on the day we played Manchester City and has trained for the last two days.
As captain of Senegal he was disappointed with the defeat in the Africa Cup of Nation because he had great hopes. On paper they were one of the contenders to win it, so to go out on a penalty shoot-out was disappointing but he is ready to play.
If you see the results we have played some good games without him but he is a top player and we have missed him. He can play in different positions and I rate Kouyate.
I was asked about our targets for the rest of the season and I just want to approach it game by game and very simple - to climb as high as possible.
We want to enlarge the gap between us and the relegation places and to close the gap to, 8th, 9th, 7th, if possible.
There are still so many points available to close that gap but there is still danger there.
I was also asked about Jose Fonte going back to Southampton in the pre-match press conference and the help he can give us on facing his former team-mates.
There are no secrets in football. We are not the ones that are not watching games. If you watch Southampton's three or four latest games then he can tell you a bit of inside stories like about individuals. What they are good at or not.
It does help but you must prove your point. You have to find out something like “I didn't know that” because now football is more or less an open book but it's good to know.
He is a top player and we have missed him. He can play in different positions and I rate Kouyate.
Slaven Bilic
We could be coming up against Manola Gabbiadini after he completed his move to Southampton this week.
I know he's an Italian international and he was at big club Napoli. He had his ups and downs. I watch football a lot and although he wasn't ever a regular at Napoli, every time he played you were always like: “Why, why isn't he playing regularly?”
He scores goals, he's got great skills. He's not a typical striker, but he does score goals and he's got a great first touch. He's a really good player. I know Napoli had really good options last year, Higuain, Hamsik, but I was surprised that he didn't play more.”
Some of the best strikers need time to adjust. Henry, Bergkamp, they needed time. There are some strikers who never adapt. We had one at West Ham, Florin Raducioiou, he came from Milan. Great player but he never adapted, like Zaza now.
But that doesn't make them bad players, not at all. But you get some players who adapt straight away. Hopefully he needs some time to adapt!
People have asked why our record against the big teams is not the same as last season.
First of all, the gap is bigger now and I think they woke up. We see that in the table. Okay, in the last round you had a few upsets like Spurs didn't beat Sunderland, Liverpool lost to Swansea two weeks ago but this season there are fewer surprises.
Last season we were tremendous against them. I think we lost only one game against top teams and that was Spurs away. This year it doesn't happen but we still have three or four chances left.
Enjoy the game this afternoon.
Slaven