West Ham moving to new Rush Green base on Monday as Slaven Bilic blames injury crisis on 'rock hard' Chadwell Heath

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Slaven Bilic has taken the desperate step of switching West Ham’s training base in an attempt to end the club’s injury problems.

Winston Reid, Manuel Lanzini and Victor Moses all face six weeks out after picking up injuries in the last week. Dimitri Payet, Enner Valencia and Diafra Sakho are also sidelined.

It has forced Hammers boss Bilic to take action and on Monday the club will move from their Chadwell Heath headquarters in east London to their academy base three miles away at Rush Green.

Scroll down for video.

Hammers players warm-up on the Chadwell Heath training grounds described by Slaven Bilic as 'rock hard'

The basic facilities at Chadwell Heath were due to be replaced by Rush Green next season

The club had planned to move before next season but Bilic has decided enough is enough.

‘I heard a lot about the pitches here, they are not ideal,’ he said. ‘They are slippery on the top but rock hard underneath and it is a bad combination.

‘Over the time, players have been moaning about the pitches, they are not happy.

But Slaven Bilic has decided to move on Monday to Rush Green, where Argentina trained last year

‘We were planning to move next season, at the start, to Rush Green. I decided on Monday next week, we will go.

‘We can’t continue to risk this much on these kind of pitches. We can live without the great dressing room and kitchens.

‘I don’t want to stand still and say we’re unlucky when my groundsman told me the pitches at Rush Green are way better. Let’s move, it’s only a couple of miles down the road.’

David Gold insisted there was ‘nothing wrong’ with the club’s training pitches when questioned by a fan on Twitter this week, but Bilic said the Hammers chairman had backed his plans to move.

Bilic says he can no longer risk injury to his players on the Chadwell Heath surface ahead of Monday's move 

Enner Valencia leaves the Upton Park pitch on a stretcher after an injury against Astra Giurgiu in July

‘I spoke to the chairman about what I would love to do and he agreed totally,’ said Bilic.

Meanwhile, as West Ham prepare for their last Christmas at the Boleyn Ground they are busy decorating the Olympic Stadium ready for the big move next year.

New computer-generated images have been released as the project enters its final phase. There will be claret everywhere — and some blue — with Bobby Moore’s No 6 shirt above the concourse of the stand which will carry his name.

A stand will also be named after Sir Trevor Brooking, as at the Boleyn Ground, and the crossed hammers design will be on display in the lower-tier seats of a 54,000-capacity arena.

Valencia trains at Chadwell Heath on Thursday and hopes to play some part against Stoke on Saturday

Diafra Sakho is helped off the pitch after picking up an injury in the Hammers' November 29 draw West Brom

Andy Carroll (left) and his West Ham team-mates stretch on the Chadwell Heath deemed too hard by Bilic 

Numbers have not been revealed but Sportsmail understands the club is on track to sell 35,000 season tickets for 2016-17 by the end of this year, an increase of about 10,000 on this season.

Thanks to price cuts, adult season tickets at the new ground start at £289.

Bilic currently has six key players - Dimitri Payet, Enner Valencia, Diafra Sakho, Manuel Lanzini, Victor Moses and Winston Reid - on his casualty list.

Payet and Valencia were hurt after heavy challenges against Everton last month but the other four have suffered muscle injuries, which Bilic has blamed on the training pitches.

Winger Moses and defender Reid were this week ruled out until the new year with hamstring damage, which proved the final straw for the Croatian.

The unassuming entrance of Rush Green, which has been the base for the first team and women's squad

Bilic's side will relocate to Rush Green, where the Development Squad and Under 18s are based

'I heard a lot about the pitches here and they are not ideal,' he said. 'With Reid's injury, for example, they are slippery on the top but rock hard underneath, and it is a bad combination.

'Over the time players have been moaning about the pitches, they are not happy.

'We were planning to move next season, at the start, to Rush Green because of the quality of the pitches.

'I decided on Monday next week, we will go. We can't continue to risk this much on these kind of pitches.

'The pitches are better there than here. We can live without the great dressing room, the kitchens and the free area for now.'

Winger Victor Moses is one of the latest to be ruled out through injury, while Manuel Lanzini's also on the list

Injury to New Zealand defender Winston Reid (right), also a hamstring, was the final straw for Bilic

New Zealand international Reid could be facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines, with West Ham awaiting the results of a scan on Friday.

'It doesn't look good,' added Bilic. 'It's one of those they tell you is four to six weeks, but it doesn't look like small one. He slipped and felt it rupture.

'Victor is out for four to six weeks. It's a blow - we have had six injuries since the Everton game. Before that we had a full squad!'

Ecuador forward Valencia is the closest to being fit and has an outside chance of making the bench against Stoke on Saturday.

Former winger Matthew Etherington has labelled the injury crisis at the club 'ridiculous' in a blog post on fan website thewesthamway.co.uk.

'I can only speak of my time at this great club and say that the training ground was always way too firm,' he writes.

'Don't get me wrong the surface was pristine but always liable for injuries. It was like literally training on a road for two hours every day. 

'When I went back to train last summer (2014) the training ground was still way too hard and nothing had changed. I had a muscle injury myself within a few days.'

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WEST HAM'S RUSH GREEN HQ...

West Ham acquired the 29-acre Rush Green site in Havering, Essex, for £1million from Ford Sport and Social Club in 2009.

Located less than two miles away from Chadwell Heath, the complex was formally re-opened by co-chairman David Sullivan in 2012 before it was leased to non-league outfit Grays Athletic.

A year later, it became the new home to West Ham's Academy.

Argentina used it as their base before playing Croatia at Upton Park last November with the likes of Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez taking on a Hammers' development team during training.

Plenty of construction work has been carried out at the site since then with the first-team's move in mind.

Although a large amount of improvements continue, Rush Green is sufficiently equipped to cater for Slaven Bilic's squad.

Messi and Argentina used Rush Green as their base before playing Croatia at Upton Park last November

There is an onsite canteen with a spacious dining area already in place which the club's Academy starlets have been using. It couples up as an area for coaches to undertake one-on-one reviews with young players and can be used to accommodate press conferences - as was the case with Argentina a year ago.

The players will take full advantage of a bigger and better gym compared to the existing portable cabin area at Chadwell Heath, with state-of-the-art equipment.

Rush Green boasts a multimedia suite for the analysis department with cameras in place to record training sessions.

There are numerous dressing and treatment rooms available for staff and players, while there is a separate players lounge.

Temporary classrooms on site provide lessons for Academy schoolboys and scholars who are part of the club's partnership with neighbouring secondary school, Robert Clack.

Academy staff have an office located immediately inside the Rush Green building, while there is a huge car park manned by security.

At present, Academy teams from Under 8 to Under 21s use the training facilities at Rush Green - although the post-school Under 16 and 18s play their games at the Hammers' nearby Little Heath HQ.

There are five outside pitches in total with a segregated stadium pitch - complete with an identical playing surface to the Bolyen Ground - which is used to host Under 21 fixtures.

The stadium area is likely to be used by Bilic's team when they move-in next Monday.

MATT LAWLESS