West Ham United manager David Moyes has expounded on reasons for Andre Ayew's bit-part role in the team.

The Ghana international has seen less playing minutes since Moyes replaced Slaven Bilic last month.

The 27-year-old has started just one game in the five games under Moyes and fans are perturbed about the former Olympique Marseille attacker's situation.

However, has shed light on the reason behind Ayew's situation in the aftermath of their famous 1-0 victory against Chelsea over the weekend.

“Going back to when I started, I think the squad was a group of players where we had a lot of centre forwards, a lot of left wingers,” Moyes said on Friday.

“If you going to play three at the back, you can’t really fit in wide players and wingers and if you are going to play 4-3-3, you can only play one striker, so I feel as if there was a group of players who were made for a couple of systems."

“So it has not always been that easy to just do that one job, and you are trying to get your best players in the team, so I can understand why Chicharito has had to play in certain roles because there are other centre-forwards like Andy Carroll and Andre Ayew here."

“We have got to try and find a way of getting the best balance. We are still working towards getting to that.”

Reports say West Ham are willing to let go of Ayew, who joined the club on a then club record £20.5 million deal in summer 2016, as Moyes has no guarantees for the 27-year-old by way of game time.

Swansea City, from whom he joined West Ham, West Bromwich Albion and Italian side Inter Milan are said to be interested in the Ghanaian's services.

The Hammers are 19th on the standings with 13 points after 16 matches.