West Ham United legend Sir Trevor Brooking believes the return to fitness of Andy Carroll and Andre Ayew will help fire the Hammers up the Premier League table.

The London Stadium club have been painfully short of a goalscorer this season, with Michail Antonio being their most prolific player with six goals this season.

Brooking is convinced West Ham have the quality in their ranks to compete and says the return of out and out strikers to the squad can only be a positive.

He told the club website: “You can see the capability that the team has after we played so well to get the victory over Chelsea in the EFL Cup and no one has beaten them in recent weeks.

“We have suffered a number of injuries, so the form of certain players has not been as strong and scoring goals has been a big issue.

“We saw last season what a threat Andy Carroll can be and he needs to stay fit. When he is fit he is a handful and our biggest challenge has been to score sufficient goals.

“I hope Andy can gradually come back and Andre Ayew can start to show his best form. We also need to get Diafra Sakho fit again because he was starting to show what we can do when we have a decent striker up there.”

West Ham would be advised to find their shooting boots ahead of an away match against a Liverpool side who have scored the most goals in the Premier League this season.

The Anfield club are without a number of key players for the match, but Brooking is under no illusions about the size of the task facing West Ham.

“Liverpool have got a couple of injuries at the moment but it is not an easy place to go,” he explained.

“They have got a lot of strength in depth and it will be a tough game. We had a great result there last year (a 3-0 win) but I can’t remember having the best of times at Anfield during my playing days.”