Insider ExWHUemployee has revealed that West Ham United defender Angelo Ogbonna is in contention to play in the Europa Conference League.
What's the latest Angelo Ogbonna and West Ham injury news?
While the club's Premier League form has been iffy at best this season, they've continued to march on with real promise in Europe.
Indeed, David Moyes and co managed to win all their group stages games, as well as both legs of their last-16 clash with AEK Larnaca.
However, they had to settle for a draw when they made the trip to Belgium for their quarter-final match against Gent which ended 1-1 last week.
Seeing as Ogbonna has played in all but two of West Ham's Europa Conference League matches so far, it will be great if he's fit to play on Thursday night.
And despite missing the league draw with Arsenal on Sunday, it seems as though the experienced Italian could return to feature against Gent.
Indeed, while speaking on The West Ham Way Podcast, Ex said (2:43): “Obviously, Ogbonna was due to start the game on Sunday. But he'd had a knock in training, I think which had been a result of the actual game, I think from memory, he went down for quite a long time against Gent on Thursday.
"I assume the injuries from there – and Nayef Aguerd also picked up an injury in the same game.
"But both of them should be available for Thursday, or Bournemouth at the latest. So it's not a massive thing.
"But yeah, Ogbonna's absence was a very last minute thing. And that explains it, but both of them are just minor knocks."
Will Ogbonna start for West Ham against Gent?
When speaking ahead of the 2-2 draw with Arsenal, Moyes explained the absences from his backline, telling the press: “They both tried training yesterday. We thought one of them might make it but they haven’t made it. They’re both carrying knocks. But we don’t think they’re serious.”
And now after Ex's update, it sounds as though there have been no setbacks during the week leading up the West Ham's big European match on Thursday.
That's great news as Ogbonna has been excellent in Europe so far. Indeed, as per SofaScore, he has delivered an average 7.14 match rating each game, keeping four clean sheets in seven matches.
All in all, then, it wouldn't be a surprise if the £70k-p/w defender returned to the starting team against Gent.
