“I always felt that it was just an arm’s length away,” former Hammer Sebastian Lletget has told ESPN.com about his time at West Ham.
“It was always there, but for some reason, there was always something that was holding me back, just a break, an opportunity, a breakthrough, something. I couldn’t put my finger on it.”
Speaking about Former Hammers manager Avram Grant:
“Grant, he was a mess. It’s the truth, It was just unorganized. As far as preparation, he wasn’t the best. When he was there, he pushed me off to the side.”
On Sam Allardyce he said
“What Allardyce does, he’s very good at, but he just didn’t have me in his plans, it’s as simple as that, I have nothing bad to say about him. It was just one of those things.”
The ESPN article quotes Academy Director Terry Westley as saying:
“The fear was Lletget couldn’t sustain [a high level] over a longer period, and that was why he was with the U-21 development group and not the first-team group,” said Westley by telephone to ESPN. “In possession of the ball, and being creative, he was undeniably a talent. Without the ball, he wasn’t tactically where he needed to be, he had more to learn tactically when he didn’t have the ball.”
“In England — and I think it’s a fault — do you want that flair player, that risky player, that maverick? I used to say to him, ‘You’re a bit of a maverick.’ Our managers, if you get six bad results in England, you’ll probably lose your job. Are they willing to take a risk on someone like that or not? And clearly the decision was [that] they weren’t, in England.”
Lletget has scored eight times in 19 total appearances for LA Galaxy since joining the MLS club in May. He made just one senior appearance for West Ham which was the 5-0 loss against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup in January 2014.
I think a player who has chosen to go to LA Galaxy at his time of life, has told us everything that we need to know about his character, and therefore his prospects.
He is an American that went home to get a chance to play, what would you have recommended sit in the reserves and be ignored because his VO2 max isn’t high enough ? By all accounts he worked his socks off to improve, Westley is the one who should be sent packing and get in a coach that can teach these kids how to play and is less interested in what they can score in a bleep test.
well if Westley applies the same criteria to his own performance, he has to go.
well said Vintage.
I underatand he is/was a decent player but why go back to the MLS.Though the standard is decent these days surely if he was good enough he would have been snapped up by another Prem team or at the very least a Championship or League One team.How can he be furthering his career going to the MLS.If he had anything about him or if anyone was interested in him he would have stayed in England or Europe.
Only he can answer that Radai but perhaps he was just fed up of not being given a chance despite doing everything and more knowing that Westley wasn’t going to help ? He is American so maybe going back home felt right to him and he is obviously flourishing there, so is it better playing in MLS learning what he can from the likes of Gerrard and Keane or grinding it out at the mercy of managerial changes in the championship ? The MLS for all its faults and negative perceptions should provide him a stable platform to grow, in the championship with the rewards on offer managers are hired and fired so he might be first choice one week and reserve the next, in the MLS he is playing competitive football week in week out and it may be a better shop window than a lower league in UK or Europe. I have no clue to be honest but what we do know is he left after being told not to use his talents because it might cost the team games and that he wasn’t in Westley’s mind athletic enough, he is a young kid still so how would that make you feel, maybe after 4 years of rejection by Allardyce and later Westley he thought the MLS is his level, there could be any number of reasons only he can answer. I wish him well though and hope he has a successful career 🙂
One of the lambs to the slaughter that BFS sacrificed that miserable morning in Nottingham (more fool me for being there). I wonder how many young careers were destroyed that day?