Diafra Sakho could be back in West Ham’s team against Everton on Saturday, replacing the injury-prone Andy Carroll.

The Senegal striker missed last Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Sunderland amid rumours of a row with manager Slaven Bilic over being left out of the starting line-up.

Bilic today revealed Carroll has had a recurrence of a thigh problem and would miss the Everton match. That paves the way for Sakho to play and the boss insisted today there was no issue with the Senegalese.

“He had a little injury last weekend so he wasn’t available against Sunderland but there was no row with him,” said Bilic. “We will see now in training if he will be ready for Saturday’s match.”

An equally pressing problem for Bilic will be to try to keep Romelu Lukaku quiet with the Everton striker having scored in his past nine games against West Ham.

“Lukaku has a good record against us but it is a job for our defenders,” said Bilic. “In some of the games against Everton we did well but he still scored. We have to try to get him out of his favoured positions and stop the service to him.

“He’s really good and also consistent for his age. He’s been scoring goals since he went on loan to West Brom from Chelsea. Everton have done a great job to keep him which shows how ambitious they are.

“He’s not only one of the best players in the Premier League but in the whole of Europe.

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“Everton are very confident now, especially at home. Under Roberto Martinez they were very good up front but not so much in defence. Now they are much more solid.”

Centre-half Winston Reid is training after missing four games through injury and looks like returning.

Missing, though, will be suspended pair Mark Noble and Sam Byram as West Ham bid to move further away from the bottom three where they have a nine-point cushion.

“There are 15 points at stake and we want to finish high,” said Bilic. “We have four points from the past two games and we want to continue that.”

There has been constant speculation about Bilic’s future in recent weeks but he said: “I have answered that question 20 times. It’s the same old story. All we should talk about now is Saturday’s match.”