‘We won’t rush him’ – Moyes on Yarmolenko’s compassionate leave

West Ham boss David Moyes has stressed the club will not rush Andriy Yarmolenko after giving the Ukraine international time off following the invasion of his country by Russia.

The 32-year-old winger was not part of the Hammers’ squad for Sunday’s 1-0 Premier League win over Wolves, having been given compassionate leave.

West Ham return to action on Wednesday with an FA Cup fifth-round tie at Southampton, and Moyes said of Yarmolenko at his pre-match press conference: “He came back in and did a bit of light training (on Monday), I had a good chat with him.

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“Obviously he’s really upset with the whole situation, which many people are.

“We won’t rush him. I’ve asked him to come in today and see how he feels. If he feels fine and up to it then he’ll travel with the team. If he doesn’t, then we’ll give him some more days off.

“Things can change very quickly but we’ll give him the chance to go with his own feelings.

“He’s really upset – he’s got lots of family members in Ukraine and friends and he’s worried for everybody and realises the difficulty that’s going on, and he’s a long way away and can’t do an awful lot about it.”

Prior to Sunday’s match there was a strong show of support for Yarmolenko and Ukraine, which included West Ham warming up in T-shirts displaying his name and Declan Rice leading the side out carrying Yarmolenko’s number seven shirt.

Moyes added: “It’s a really difficult situation for us as well, because we’d like to offer him more help and support if we can, but we don’t really know what we can do either, and I think it’s the same with the world, I think the world is trying to give Ukraine as much support as they can.

“All we can hope for is the