West Ham Chairman David Gold has raised his doubts of a breakthrough into the Premier League first team for the Hammer’s latest crop of teenagers from the Academy.
Replying to the news that Reece Oxford, Reece Burke and Domingos Quina will most likely go out on loan again next season Gold admitted: “I think we all have to (accept) that it is extremely unlikely that a teenager will break into a P(remier) L(eague) team full of seasoned international(s). dg”
West Ham is one of six Premier League clubs not to have played a teenager in the league this season. West Ham, Chelsea, Leicester City, Swansea, Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough didn’t field a teenager in action this season while Everton topped the table with 2,140 minutes played by teenagers with Manchester United a close second with 1,924 minutes played.
Gold replied: “Playing teenagers doesn’t guarantee success. Hull came 5th and got relegated. Chelsea came last and won the league. dg”
Adding:“Sam (Allardyce) played the teenagers at Nottingham Forest and we got beat 5-0. dg”
Slaven Bilic has indicated that 18-year-old Declan Rice will play some part of West Ham’s game on Sunday recording the first minutes of a teenager in the first team this season.
Dont tell that to a few of our supporters.They hear a name or read a report from a league one or two match and it means they should be racing certainties to be pl players.So more or less a third of the league never played a teenager and i expect many of the others only played one or two because of injury issues.
Well as they say. You have to be in it to win it. Go for all of the same big attractions as the so called bigger clubs are going for because it is who the player is attracted to that counts. I mean if the owners get the 66,000 seats approved to be filled, well the attraction of playing in the Capitol at the largest ground outside of the national stadium is quite an attraction for any player to consider on his list of refusals and put in bids for everyone, and as far as the academy players playing topic raised I’d hang onto Reece Oxford because what he did at 16 years of age at Arsenal, at the beginning of last season, was phenomenal, but get onto 66,000 seats being approved before the new season starts, and, If you can beat Spurs & Chelsea at the stadium you can beat anyone!
I like to read what the fellas who actually go to watch the younguns have to say on west ham sites and unless i misinterpret their views they seem to think we have a promising bunch but can see why they dont figure in the first team yet.
Im sure these lads would benefit from playing proper reserve team football against men not other boys but that got scrapped.
Only the older buggers of a certain vintage will remember the Combination League for the south and the Central League up north lol
Actually i take that back it only stopped in 2011-12 but it seemed like decades ago to my old grey matter.Must be time for another mot down the quacks lol
You’re right in some repsect Stan because i believe the names combination and central were replaced around the millennium if i remember rightly.That is probably why you think it was so long ago buddy..
It must be time to go and support Bradford soon isnt it.Come on you bantams…
When Oxford has played or Burke they didn’t look out of place, Slav just preferred his older players to make mistakes and stay in the team, Oxford should have been given a run of games, I watched Cullen play for Bradford earlier, he had a decent game but if that is his normal level needs another season or two of loans. Declan Rice is good at Pl2 level but he is nowhere near the level of Oxford or Burke, Martinez could maybe go to Bradford, judging on todays performance they create a lot and score very little, if Martinez had been playing they would have worked the Millwall keeper a lot more, overall it was a fairly low quality game, as for Samuelson he has an abundance of ability but he has blinkers on with the ball wants to beat everyone ten times, whether that can be trained out of him and he learns to play heads up football and start passing instead of shooting from all angles remains to be seen, Quina looks decent but much too lightweight at this stage, Fletcher should go on loan to the Championship next season, he is a great prospect but needs minutes on the pitch, Byram has potential but if we sign Zabaletta he ain’t going to play much so loan him out also imho. We have the nucleus of a lot of potential and we have yet to see what playing the big boys in PL2 will do for our recruitment.