For several of West Ham United’s young up and coming players, the mysery of relegation must have been short-lived, with the realisation that Championship football might offer them the very step-up they seek to make their break through into senior football.
Ollie Scarles: Recognises that the Championship requires a big squad
The extra demands of the schedule in the second tier are well known: West Ham youngster Ollie Scarles has been quick to spot the opportunities that will exist when the season kicks off:
“We’re going to need a big squad, with three games a week, so it’s going to be a lot of games, a lot of quick turnovers, so we’re going to need a fit and, like I said, a big squad that is ready to step in whenever it’s needed.”
Scarles will be eager to get more minutes at Ibrox on Sunday as West Ham’s pre- season continues. With fellow left back Malick Diouf still recovering from the World Cup and behind schedule of the main squad, Scarles has another opportunity to impress Nuno and book himself a starting slot for the Carabao Cup round one in just two weeks time:
“I just want the opportunity to be able to express myself and show what I can do and prove to the manager and show as much as I can as to why I want to be playing and that’s it really. I need to earn my spot and I’ll give everything I can to do that.”
Ollie Scarles may be the one of the established squad members but crunch time awaits for his fellow former academy graduates Orford, Marshall, Casey, Herrick, Earthy and Mayers who will be hoping to be kept with the main squad this season rather than loaned or sold: There’s an opportunity lurking for some with the high volume of games with which the squad will have to cope.
Standing head and shoulders above his team mates, Lewis Orford did himself no harm at all with his performance and goal against Stevenage: For the rest, there’s still an uncertain future unfolding in the next couple of weeks as Nuno gets to decide who makes the cut.
In addition to games there will be injuries and suspensions.
Bench needs to be adequate for fatigue.
Still need Fernandes and Summerville replacements (with same qualities).
Also striker with ability to supply 15 goals.
I thought about it last season and think the same now that relegation could potentially be great for us and the the Spuds would live to regret not being relegated, they could have had a huge clear out and rebuilt instead we have that opportunity.
We have bought badly under DS and sold badly too, under DK early signs are that things are changing even though we will take hits on Alvarez, Fullkrug and possibly JCT.
We need to go root and branch through how we operate and gear it to a consistent strategy imho of buying young talent with resale value and creating a culture of developing those young players into starts of the future, now that we are in the Championship, players like Scarles, Kante, Fearon, Ajala, Oxford, Mayers, Golembakis will have opportunities to develop and possibly save us a fortune in the market.
If the rumours are true and we invest in a new training ground that is a opportunity also to have training facilities that are worthy of the PL, we should be aiming towards Cobham where Chelsea have theirs which imho are the best in the UK possibly the World.
I think other clubs will find it easier dealing with DK and his team than they did DS too and as he is no longer on the board it will probably be easier to attract sponsorships of higher value, fingers crossed that or better turns out to be true COYI !!!