Back in the day when Julen Lopetegui was at the helm of West Ham United, the Irons had a tricky defensive issue which was created when Nayef Aguerd found himself dispatched on loan and no replacement was recruited: West Ham entered the start of the 2024/5 campaign with only three front line centre backs. (Sound familiar?)
Lopetegui called up teenager Kaelan Casey from the academy as the ‘fourth’ centre back, and the youngster spent plenty of time on the Irons’ bench as mostly an unused substitute, amassing just two minutes in the Premier League.
Lopetegui and West Ham’s youngsters Casey and Earthy: One now gone, the other stagnating.
So near, but yet so far.
Fast forward two years and Casey is struggling to make an impression on the third tier of English football.
Loaned out to Stevenage, Casey has appeared just twice within their EFL Trophy games, again giving rise to questions over the wisdom of loaning to the same club which denied Lewis Orford game time last season.
Casey, once on the verge of Premier League first team football, is now deemed ‘almost but not quite’ good enough for Stevenage’s boss Alex Reveal who claims:
““I think Kaelan Casey could easily hold up his hands and say that over the two games I’ve put in performances that are thoroughly deserved [to give me chances in the league]… That is what we want, right?
That is what we want. We want a squad of people pushing in the right direction.”(insidefutbol.com)
And yet the fact that he doesn’t get a sniff at third division football invokes a sense of deja vu over Lewis Orford’s loan spell. The same player who is now a Championship regular. Sounds as if Alex Reveal is using West Ham’s talent merely to push his own squad to perform better.
Maybe, maybe not. But it doesn’t sound as if the loan for Casey, being denied regular third division football, is going to add a whole lot to his competence or confidence. Which is the whole point of a loan, isn’t it?
MT.
Do you think that our development team actually assess the loan club coaching set up, stipulating areas that need developing for the loaned player?
Or just, field an availability enquiry, agree finances and wave goodbye to the player in question?
Well, maybe just maybe, they aren’t/ weren’t considered good enough by a coaching team that sees them in training every day?
Just a thought.