West Ham‘s former teen frontman who departed last summer for fresh fields has learned the hard way that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the Premier League fence. Divin Mubama refused a new West Ham contract and left the club it seemed just as success -albeit a David Moyes shaped, sheltered, carefully controlled (or ‘held back’ depending on your view point) success beckoned: Which was not enough for Divin, who left London for the bright lights of Manchester and superstardom.
To the outsider, there was a sense that Moyes had not given Mubama minutes – apart from game time in the friendlies, the young striker sat largely ignored, fretting his season away on the bench- so it is easy to see why he left.
Mubama headed to Manchester City where things didn’t go according to plan – a few cup minutes but no triumphant breakthrough: West Ham appointed Lopetegui who was even worse at promoting youth than his predecessor. Neither West Ham nor Mubama prospered post break up.
Yesterday the news that Mubama had dropped down to the Championship on a season long loan in search of a future was greeted with comments laced in schadenfreude by several reports. Not fair really. Good luck to the young man.
West Ham have now undergone radical change, with the irony being that the work done by Mark Noble and the manager mean there’s such a thing now as Potter’s ‘pathway’: As Ollie Scarles has made it through to the first XI, Mubama would surely have had a chance at leading the line at West Ham had he stayed.
Most important of all, Mubama’s experience serves as a salutary lesson to West Ham’s crop of young talent that “all that glitters is not gold”. The Irons have to treat their young talent better but the likes of Pottts, Earthy, Marshall, Orford et al might not be so fast to leave the club watching Mubama struggle to make an impact.
This does not surprise me at all, I never was impressed by Mubama and never thought that he would end up as a premier league player. The club regularly calls it right with our young players who leave and go on to play in the lower leagues. Perkins, Ngakia, Ashby, we robbed WBA with what they paid for Diangana…
We are very very guilty of rose tinted specs but they club are not.
Excellent point that needs making. For years our Academy has been producing Championship & below players. Which is what most academies do. Appx 3% of academy players make the Prem. Thanks for bringing up a good point & using perfect examples, all the players you mentioned were lauded by the fans. Is Perkins even starting for Orient? ashby for Swansea?
Sorry, but it went exactly to plan. It was well reported at the time that only bought by Man City as they needed an extra forward in Development squad. Was never signed for the 1st team and released once that role finished. Most youth players don’t make the transition to then Premier League
If they were good enough they broke through under Moyes at Everton. Rooney, Rodwell, Barkley, Osman, all became key first team players for him. At West Ham Moyes had the likes of Declan Rice and Ben Johnson so maybe he compared the younger West Ham youth lads to those boys and didn’t think they were ready. He did start playing Earthy towards the end of his time but Lopetegui sent him on loan.
Sonny Perkins? Harrison Ashby? What happened to those boys. All touted as the next best thing at one point.
Sonny perkins came to leeds with a lot of expectation from leeds fans .never made the grade and now sold to orient
If he was any good then Moyes would have played him week in week out in a very average West Ham Team, let’s remember he gave Rooney his debut at Everton and we all know what he went on to achieve but Divin was obviously suffering from dillusional grandeur if he ever thought he was gonna play ahead of Haaland, Bobb, Foden etc at City. At best he’s a lower league striker who should still have some sort of career but was never gonna be elite, the Press bigged him up a bit as well so should be blamed for his downfall
Technical gifts aren’t enough, look at Reece Oxford and any number of our other past players that looked like world beaters in the youth teams, you need desire, focus and resilience and the ability to channel that into performance. Declan Rice is a classic example written off at Chelsea because they possibly didn’t see his character as important, he dusted himself off and channeled that disappointment into results, got lucky having a chance and took it. Mubama has had plenty of chances and not taken them, he will continue to get them because he has the attributes that meet most of the metrics for performance but doesn’t have the ones that makes those translate into positive results.
Didn’t Reece Oxford go to Augsburg in the Bundesliga?
Anyway, if it was Oxford, he ended up getting long Covid and didn’t play for Augsburg again.
Or… David Moyes judgement of the player was correct. As an Everton fan, it’s crazy to me this weird stance West Ham media has regarding Moyes. We had Moyes for 11 years previously, he brought lots of Everton young players into the Everton first team. You can only work with what you’ve got & meeting the demands made of you.
Mubama wouldn’t have been ‘held back’ had he been good enough. He wasn’t, it’s as simple as that.
Absolutely Hammersmiff, after all, Rooney was playing regular premiership football at 16/17, reason being he was good enough and that was even under Moyes watch.
I’m not sure holding Rooney up as an example is fair on any youth team player, but get the point.
Exactly Brian, and I agree, that said, Rooney was just that, a youth player who shone above others and proved he had what it took to play regular premiership football.
Quite simply, he was good enough, Mubama isn’t.
Mubama has done well at City. There seems to be sour grapes at West Ham on account of this lad leaving them. He will do well on loan and come back to City a smarter player.