London, July 17 (IANS): West Ham United coach Slaven Bilic has confirmed that Barcelona's Cameroonian midfielder Alex Song is "close" to sign with the English football club, where he played last season on loan.

"Although I said I'm not going to discuss players from other teams, he is somewhere in between," Efe quoted Bilic as saying on Thursday.

"He played here on loan last year and he's a little bit injured. I don't deny that he was a great player who did really well last year and I would like him to stay with us," the Croatian coach added.

The 27-year-old Cameroonian international suffered an injury toward the end of last season, and may need to undergo surgery because of a sore knee.

The midfielder capped 31 games last year in the English Premier League (EPL), and on June 30 returned to Barcelona, the club that has him for one more year on contract.

Yet Song may still become the sixth reinforcement for West Ham in the 2015-2016 season, as the English side has already signed Pedro Obiang (Sampdoria), Angelo Ogbonna (Juventus), Dimitri Payet (Olympique Marseille), Darren Randolph (Birmingham) and Stephen Hendrie (Hamilton).