For the first time in sixteen months, West Ham defender Winston Reid appears to be fully fit, and ready to start pre-season training from day one.

Recent reports have suggested that the New Zealand international will be given a chance by manager Manuel Pellegrini to stake a claim for a first-team place, and he deserves to have the opportunity.

Reid’s knee problems stem back to March 2018 when, in a freak accident against Swansea, he was knocked out and damaged his right knee.

Since then, he has had an operation to correct the issue, but he has to spend long spells in rehab in order to return to full fitness. It’s been a long road back, but it is a battle that the defender is relatively philosophical about. He said in an interview back in October:

“This was just one of those unfortunate injuries you hope not to get in your career, but football is a contact sport and it’s just one of those things you have to deal with.”

“Fortunately enough, I am a little bit older and I am probably able to deal with it better with an injury like this than if I was in my early twenties and in the early part of my career.”

Although mentally he was able to cope with the problem better because of his age, it remains to be seen whether physically he can return to the levels that made him a reliable centre-half for West Ham.

Even before his knee issues, he had spent a couple of months on the sidelines with a groin injury, and there are doubts about his ability to once again become a solid Premier League defender.

Pellegrini, though, is probably an ideal coach to have for Reid. It’s a completely clean slate with the Chilean having never had the chance to pick him. The manager has also shown with Robert Snodgrass that if you put in the hard graft during pre-season, he will reward you with game time.

Snodgrass was one of the players tipped to head out the door last summer, following a year out on loan at Aston Villa, but he worked his way into Pellegrini’s plans and made 38 appearances last season. Whether Reid can replicate that, we shall see.

There is, though, an opening for him in the centre of defence. Angelo Ogbonna has been regularly linked with a return to Italy this summer, and it appears his replacement, Alaves’s Guillermo Maripan, would be beyond the club’s reach financially currently.

Reid, therefore, has the opportunity to stake a claim for a place in the side. While Fabian Balbuena is a decent centre-half, the fact that the Hammers conceded 55 goals in the Premier League suggests that they could improve defensively.

A Winston Reid-Issa Diop partnership would be an interesting combination. Whether we get to see it depends on how the 30-year-old recovers his form and performs in the next month or two.