By Paul Jones

Andre Ayew is almost worth his weight in gold – or least his golden wages – according to his Swansea City head coach Steve Cooper.

Ayew has emerged unscathed from his return from injury in midweek and is likely to start for the Swans on Sunday away at Nottingham Forest.

The Ghana striker returned from international duty with a hamstring injury which forced him to miss the win over Rotherham and the first 45 minutes of the midweek draw with Sheffield Wednesday.

He was not meant to be introduced until later in the match, but with his side trailing 1-0, the 30-year-old former African Player of The Year came off the bench at the break and scored a scintillating equaliser.

Ayew has scored six of Swansea’s 15 goals so far this season – 40 per cent.

Asked whether Ayew was proving he is still worth his reputed £80,000-a-week wages – earnings reported to have been high enough to dissuade admiring clubs from taking him on loan during the transfer window – Cooper said: “I’ve always felt that.

“I’ve said it many times, he’s an outstanding player and professional and a good person, too.

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“He’s motivated to do well, but he had a setback getting injured on international duty. The Championship is full of really good players and Andre is up there with the best of them. He has been fantastic for us.”

Cooper has been boosted by the fact that Viktor Gyokeres and Jordon Garrick have returned to training and are in contention for the weekend trip to Forest.

The pair had been self-isolating following positive tests for Covid-19, but have completed those periods and returned to training on Friday.

“Viktor and Jordon have been back in today. They trained normally with the group. That’s a positive,” said Cooper.

“They’re available (for the weekend). We just have to be a bit careful. They missed 10 days of training and you don’t want to put too much on them.

We’ll build them back up as we go along. Hopefully they’ll feature sooner rather than later.

“Marc and Andre are ongoing issues that we are having to manage. I know Andre contributed the other night, but it’s still something we have to be careful of going into the weekend and beyond that.

“We’re in decent shape really in terms of player availability.”

 

Swansea were a goal down before Andre Ayew came of the bench to score this wonderful goal.

Gamechanger for the Swans team this season. 🔥🇬🇭⚽️pic.twitter.com/Gz9ZBtQtSf

— Owuraku Ampofo (@_owurakuampofo) November 26, 2020

While the Swans sit fourth in the Championship table after 13 games, Forest, the side they pipped to a play-off place last term are in 20th place.

However, they have shown signs of improvement since Chris Hughton took over from Sabri Lamouchi in early October.

Cooper added: “You look at Forest’s squad and – if you take away the teams that have come down who naturally have strong squads – they have got as strong a squad as anybody.

“That’s the team we’re playing and planning to play against.”