West Ham's James Collins looking forward to strikers' return

Manuel Lanzini and Andy Carroll could return to the West Ham squad for the Boxing Day trip to Aston Villa and defender James Collins would be delighted to see the forwards back.

Lanzini was ruled out for six weeks at the start of December with a thigh problem, but is reportedly making good progress and is on track to feature at Villa Park.

Carroll missed Sunday's goalless draw at Swansea with a groin problem but is also expected to be fit for Saturday's game, while Enner Valencia is back in the fold after appearing as a substitute in the last two games.

Dimitri Payet is due back from his ankle injury in mid-January, although there is an outside chance he could play in the home game against Liverpool on January 2, to further increase West Ham's firepower which has been lacking during a seven-game winless run in which they have scored only three goals, including 0-0 draws in their last three matches.   

"We're defending well, but a bit too desperate at times. Last-ditch tackles and chucking yourself in front of things, it looks good, but we don't really want to be defending that hard," Collins told his club's official website.

"We'd rather be a bit more solid and a bit more organised. We certainly need to be scoring more goals. I don't want to make excuses, but our flair players, our goalscorers, we are missing them.

"It's one of those things. You get injuries. Before, we were flying. Dimi was flying. Lanzini was flying. Diafra Sakho's out as well. So it has derailed us a bit.

"We've got a massive squad, full of international players that have come in and performed. So it's not doom and gloom by any stretch of the imagination.

"But we are picking points up, we're still confident and we've got a busy Christmas period with games we feel we can win."