Lampard could face West Ham

23 October 2014 03:46

Frank Lampard has an outside chance of recovering from injury ahead of Manchester City's visit to another of his old clubs West Ham on Saturday.

The 36-year-old missed the Champions League trip to CSKA Moscow after being carried from the field on a stretcher against Tottenham last Saturday, but his injury is not a serious one.

It is understood he remains a doubt for the West Ham game with a thigh muscle injury but if he does miss the match he should be back for next week.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Manchester City's new state-of-the-art training centre could be used by Lampard's club New York City FC for a pre-season camp in January.

That could benefit City by allowing the midfielder to extend his loan spell at the Etihad deeper in to the new year than was first envisaged.

The new MLS franchise is part-owned by City's owner Sheikh Mansour and the new Etihad Campus in Manchester, built at a cost of £200million, is one of a number of options for New York City as a base for pre-season training.

Sources say that Lampard's loan spell will play no part in any decision of the venue for the training camp, however.

Lampard was voted City's player of the month for September by fans and has scored a number of important goals for the club. He also won a penalty against Tottenham last weekend.

City boss Manuel Pellegrini said last week he was not surprised by how well Lampard has been performing.

"For me it is maybe not a surprise because I know his quality," said the City manager.

"When you are the age of Frank Lampard you are not able to play three games in a week but when you have so great a player, you can resolve a lot of problems that we have during the game and I think that Frank is doing these duties at this moment. I am very happy with him."

Source: PA