West Ham United have been dealt a big injury blow ahead of their Europa Conference League meeting with RSC Anderlecht on Thursday evening.
What's the latest?
That's according to ExWHUemployee, who revealed on a recent episode of The West Ham Way podcast that, after being withdrawn in the 2-0 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday due to a calf strain, Maxwel Cornet was sent for scans earlier this week to determine how severe the winger's injury is.
The West Ham insider went on to state that, as a result of his setback, he does not expect the 26-year-old to feature in David Moyes' squad to face Anderlecht on Thursday, before suggesting that the forward could even remain sidelined for the Hammers' Premier League meeting with Fulham on Sunday afternoon.
Regarding the condition of the Ivory Coast international, Ex said: "Obviously he went off during the game on Saturday with a calf injury. Now, the club are doing scans on that calf injury today [Monday]. He did return to the bench quite quickly after he went off, so it didn't appear to be too serious.
"But he's just being checked out by the medical team with scans [on Monday] to ascertain the extent of that injury. I mean, I'd probably suggest he won't play on Thursday, but it'll be interesting to see whether it goes beyond the Fulham game, but we shall see what the scan says."
Big blow for Moyes
Considering just how impressive Cornet has been for West Ham in Europe so far this season, Ex's claim that the winger looks unlikely to feature against Anderlecht on Thursday is undoubtedly bad news for Moyes and his side.
Indeed, the £17.5m-rated attacker played a key role in the Irons' qualification for the Conference League, registering two assists in the club's 6-1 aggregate victory over Viborg FF in the play-off round prior to the start of the tournament proper.
This is form the 26-year-old has continued over his two outings in the group stage of the competition, registering one further assist, in addition to making an average of 3.0 key passes - the joint seventh-most in the tournament - taking 0.5 shots and completing 0.5 dribbles per game.
The 29-cap international has also contributed for the Hammers in a defensive capacity, making an average of 2.0 tackles, gaining possession of the ball 1.5 times and winning 4.5 duels per fixture, in addition to completing an average of one cross and finding his man with 1.5 long balls per game.
These metrics have seen the player who Moyes claimed has "shown he can get a goal" average an extremely impressive SofaScore match rating of 7.10, currently ranking him as West Ham's sixth-best performer in the competition.
As such, it is clear to see that the loss of Cornet's creativity will come as a big blow to the Irons ahead of the Anderlecht fixture, especially considering the fact that a win against the Belgian side would put Moyes' men in pole position to qualify for the knockout stages of the competition.