Seventeen year old Reece Oxford has yet again been linked to a move to four of the so called top six clubs in the Premier League.
The London Evening Standard has this morning recycled an old story to claim he is on the short list of Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool.
West Ham Chairman David Sullivan told Sky Sports earlier this year: “We would only let fringe players go or if someone made an offer we couldn’t refuse. We are not going to selling players for £10m or £20m, we are a non selling club.”
And ClaretandHugh was told again this morning: “It’s the usual silly season stuff. There is no question of Reece being allowed to leave.”
The highly-rated centre-back joined West Ham United as an U13 after Spurs rejected him and was named among the substitutes for the League Cup second-round defeat by Sheffield United on 27 August 2014, aged 15.
He was capped by England at U17 level, captaining the side at the Nordic Tournament in Denmark in July/August 2014. He became West Ham’s youngest ever player when making his debut against FC Lusitans on 2 July last year. He was in the starting line-up for the Hammers’ opening day Barclays Premier League 2-0 victory at Arsenal.
I’m sure all rich clubs have him on their short list. They wouldn’t expect to pay the right price for him, and they would expect us to cave in. They also need to boost their homegrown player numbers.
Luckily the chairmen along with all of us associated with West Ham will tell them to f*** off!
…. politely off course.
Well of course we need to show these players that we are going places, or they will themselves not buy into the dream of staying. At present the OS keeps them onside but that first year will be vital to keep them enthused once the initial draw of it fades. That includes the like of established players like Payet as well as those youngsters like Oxford. The latter has a 30 month outstanding contract I think, so in a year to 18 mths at most we will need to tie him down to a long contract or get as much for him as we can even though we would of course receive compensation anyway. Often whatever the owners say though, we don’t always hold all the cards all the time and heads can be turned.
You can’t tell me Oxford isn’t good enough to play regularly in the first team?My gut feeling is that we will lose Oxford unless he get’s a fair go.