Hammers youngsters victim of club success

By Dave Langton

West Ham’s crop of young talent have become very much victims of the club’s own success.

The youngsters such as Sonny Perkins, Emmanuel Longelo and Armstrong Okoflex were all given time on the bench this season but made no impact  on the first-team.

And although there have been complaints from fans that can be mainly explained by just how well the Hammers were playing throughout the campaign.

Up until the final day of the season, we were in the mix to qualify for the Europa League, having previously been pushing for a top-four finish.

The squasd were brilliantly fighting until the latter stages of the Europa League, only losing to Eintracht Frankfurt in the semi-finals who went on to win the trophy.

At that stage of the season, it becomes all the harder to blood the kids, due to the immense pressure of each game.

You could throw a youngster in at the deep end and hope they swim but they could just as easily drown, and one has to think that factored into David Moyes’ thinking.

In fact, the only way that youngsters usually tend to be blooded is after a genuine crisis or a run of fixtures that see the club slide down the league. The manager has to decide, all of a sudden, that the senior pros just aren’t good enough.

At no point did Moyes have to make that call. And, as a result, the young players at the club were left sitting on the bench.