David Moyes is likely to be without several players for West Ham United’s Premier League trip to Crystal Palace on New Year’s Day.
Kurt Zouma (hamstring tendon) and Angelo Ogbonna (knee) will be unavailable as they recover from long-term injuries, while Aaron Cresswell has also been sidelined in recent weeks with the back injury he suffered at Manchester City on 28 November.
However, the West Ham United manager is set to once again have vice-captain Declan Rice – absent from the 4-1 victory over Watford on Tuesday due to a one-match suspension through accumulation of yellow cards – available for selection for the trip to Selhurst Park.
Should he feature, Saturday's match would mark Rice's 150th in the Premier League, a feat which would see the England midfielder become the 17th different player to reach that milestone for the Hammers in the competition.
At 22 years and 352 days old on the day of the Crystal Palace game, Rice would be almost three years junior to the previous youngest player to reach the landmark in Claret and Blue: Club captain Mark Noble hit 150 in 2013 at 25-years-old.
Speaking prior to Tuesday’s fixture at Vicarage Road, Moyes confirmed that Pablo Fornals missed out on that game after returning a positive COVID test, and warned on Thursday that – whilst there are no further updates in that regard – the situation remains volatile.
Moyes said at his pre-match press conference: "We don’t have any more numbers because it’s something that you can’t really say now, because you’re so worried that it changes every day.
“Like every other Club, we’re completely unsure what’s going to happen daily. At the moment, today’s update would be that we’re pretty clean."
The starting XI and substitutes for Saturday's match at Crystal Palace will be confirmed at 4.30pm on matchday, an hour prior to kick-off.