By Kris Gonzo | Senior West Ham Columnist (Follow on X)
The West Ham clearout shows no sign of slowing following the announcement today from ExWHUEmployee that the club are selling George Earthy.
Ex reports that Earthy is undergoing a medical at Reading ahead of completing a permanent move away from the London Stadium.
The attacking midfielder, who was part of the West Ham team which won the FA Youth Cup in 2023, was on the bench for our first Championship game of the season against Burnley last weekend.
However, Earthy’s future at the club has been uncertain for some time. Earlier this year, there remained hope that Earthy could force his way into Nuno Espírito Santo’s plans following his loan spell at Bristol City.
Clearly, that opportunity hasn’t materialised.
Earthy exit makes sense
If we’re honest, Earthy was unlikely to break into the first team this season.
If it wasn’t going to happen for him now after relegation to the Championship, it was probably never going to happen at all.
So allowing the skilful midfielder to depart, much like Callum Marshall earlier in the window, makes absolute sense.
West Ham have already sanctioned numerous departures this summer and the scale of Nuno and Nils Koppen’s planned squad clearout has been apparent for some time.
That said, considering Earthy was making up the numbers on a very thin West Ham bench at Turf Moor, it might have been wise to wait until after the Charlton game before releasing him.
Nuno isn’t exactly overflowing with options at the moment.
Good luck to George
As for George himself, he’s a great lad moving to a really good football club and I hope he thrives in League One.
Earthy’s West Ham career has been disrupted by injuries at some pretty rotten times, including another setback last season when he was trying to force his way into Nuno’s thinking.
Regular first-team football is exactly what he needs now.
It’s always a shame when one of our own leaves, particularly somebody from that brilliant FA Youth Cup-winning group, but at 21 Earthy needs to be playing.
Hopefully Reading is where he finally gets the opportunity to show everybody just how good he can be.
Too good for us anyway &
Think someone needs to remind the owners we will need 11 players to field a team!
Too creative for Nuno. So much easier to drop back after taking a lead. Potter, Nuno, just varied shades of ….
It feels bad when a unproven academy player gets sold on but TBF not many of recent times have gone onto great success – unlike the earlier galaxy of stars we sold.
However to be into the season with such a thin squad with still more going out than coming in is very Sullivan like unprofessional.
Makes preseason largely irrelevant and so much change while trying to get results in a very competitive league is so counter productive.
We started without the critical spine sorted. No new CB, MF or CF and who knows what the best team will be, not even NES it seems.
We should be the big boys in the Championship and able to get deals others can’t and able to have something like the team sorted by now.
Sadly it all seems so reminiscent of recent seasons of last minute panics and compromises.
Then of course NES’s ability to tactically destroy second half performances with mad defensive substitutions that can’t work with the players he puts on.
Of course I hope we get great players in and NES is transforms the team into a winning machine but right now the signs are not good.
Gonzo – you say he’s a great lad, do you know him?
Attitude has been called into question and the last the managers haven’t used him. Didn’t pull up any trees at City in his second spell.
Fearon is the better prospect in my humble opinion. The fact he’s going to Reading says it all.
Never been in that thinks all the academy graduates are ready made first team players, but I really struggle with some of the decisions Nervous Nuno makes. How an ex goalkeeper is qualified to make decisions on outfield players is something I’ve struggled with. Most ex goalkeepers who have become managers have usually been mediocre or failures. Dino Zoff with Italy is probably an exception, but 2 of our last 3 managers who been ex goalkeepers and both have been walking disasters!
This is just an extension to Potters clear out when he got rid of experienced long term players.
Whu great at finding managers for making squad smaller.
Very disappointing ! A better option would have been to keep Earthy and sell JWP who proved in the second half against Burnley that he offers nothing.
If this was a Nuno decision it is yet another bad one.
Earthy was a bit lightweight and far too injury-prone. Marshall was never going to be good enough, and the offer we received for Potts was simply too good to turn down.
It does create room for some of the other academy prospects. I’m hoping Fearon gets a chance, Meyers gets more game time, and Ajala gets a proper opportunity.
Nuno has given more youngsters a chance than Moyes, Lopetegui and Potter combined, so I’m certainly not going to slate him for that.
We need to see 4–5 new signings over the next two weeks, not including Piroe. We desperately need some legs in that squad.
Nils, please provide!
Not one academy player that has left us has made it ! They just aren’t good enough
Nuno: We need more attacking options.
Also Nuno: Off you trot.
What the hell is going on at West Ham. I appreciate Nuno doesn’t want players who he doesnt like, yet Pablo gets chance after chance despite the fact he’s barely a professional footballer.
Feels like we’re going all in on this 442 formation, with no plan B as all the defensive midfielders and all the attacking midfielders are being sold, yet we have 2 wide midfielders and 3 senior strikers (one of which is the aformentioned Pablo).
At the moment, we’re expecting to see AWB, Diouf, Todibo, Magassa, Alverez and Cornet (and I also read JWP) all leave the club in the next couple of weeks. Thatll leave us with 2 keepers, 2 full backs, 5 centrebacks (assuming Mayers and Golembeckis aren’t loaned out), 5 central midfielders (assuming Lamadrid is seen as one, and Orford and Kante remain), 2 wingers and 4 strikers (assuming Ajala isn’t loaned out). Thats a 20 man squad, with 4 of those not needing registering.
Amanda Staveley has properly smashed the plans for this window. I have no reason to doubt that Kretinsky was going to loan the club money, and better funded this window. The attitude with Fernandes and Summervile and getting Bowen to re sign is testament to that. However, his cash is now being used to secure shares that he wasnt expecting and probably at a higher value than they were before. I don’t blame Vanessa Gold for taking a better price, but its properly broken the boardroom.
Oh to be a West Ham fan. We need to be convincing against Charlton on Saturday, otherwise I think the fans will begin to turn more than they have. I don’t think Nuno is any danger of the sack mind. The decision makers at the club are not looking at the pitch at the moment. We could be sleepwalking into a big problem.
If this were the 1960s all these youngsters being got rid of would have stayed and would have made a good side in time. Having to compete for places with the whole world makes such a difference to their careers. The irony is that with the whole world to choose from WH are not in the PL! Stay local.
Shame…That youth cup winning side has been dismantled by the four managers that have come after ….Meanwhile Lewis skelly has played for England…After finishing on the losing side!…I wonder if its because Arsenal have a continuity that West Ham just cant seem to grasp…When your Ego becomes bigger than the club you are running then problems will arise…Looking forward lets hope calmer times are coming…Whoever is in charge.
Earthy, Potts, Marshall all proven Championship players and dismissed without a game between them. I sometimes wonder if Nuno was brought in to destroy us rather than save us.
Yes, it’s a shame but he does need to be somewhere where he can establish himself.
And although it’s another potential sale, he won’t exactly be leaving a hole in the squad. Fearon might be the obvious candidate to step up.
Hi Gonzo.. will we even have a midfield come 2nd of September? 🫣
Another good academy grad who never got a chance. Nuno continues to ruin this club by writing people off based on training sessions. How are all these decisions going to look when Nuno is gone by the end of November??
Totally agree I hope you are right about Nuno being gone before the end of November. Alas I fear that no matter how poor results are there is no one actually running the club right now to make that decision.
I am also particularly disappointed in the writers from C&H who seem to be fully behind Nuno and Kretinsky. We are all entitled to an opinion