But the move has come too late to make the West Ham squad for their Premier League trip to Manchester City this afternoon.
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Bilic may need all the help he can get on Sunday, when he takes on a Manchester City who have won all of their first four games under their new manager Guardiola.
West Ham boss Slaven Bilic said on Friday morning: ‘As far as I know, the deal is agreed between the clubs. “If there is no risk, we’ll use them”.
City needed to win to pip Liverpool to the title and Samir Nasri got the Blues off to the flawless start when he struck in the first half.
However, we still had Gokhan Tore and Michail Antonio on the pitch (thankfully not at right back), which is plenty of attacking power to get past a team now languishing at the bottom end of the Romanian league (the only teams below Astra had points deducted before the season began).
Bilic, though, has been impressed by what he has seen from City under Guardiola’s strategic leadership. Feghouli has looked risky in preseason and Lanzini was an excellent purchase a year ago as well, while Ayew’s injury is just bad luck. They were the most impressive in their Champions League game against Steaua in Bucharest, but what gives us hope is that Sunderland made it hard for them and so did Stoke – the result was 4-1 but it was not that easy and the game was very even for a long period.
“It’s going to be hard, of course”. They were most impressive in their game in Bucharest.
Andre Ayew (thigh), Andy Carroll, Aaron Cresswell (both knee) and Sofiane Feghouli (hamstring) are among the big names definitely ruled out.
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Havard Nordtveit (foot) is expected to miss out, while Dimitri Payet (knock) and Manuel Lanzini (knee) will be assessed ahead of kick-off, with Bilic hoping at least one will be able to play.
