The international break in September is like a ‘pause’ button being pressed on the Premier League campaign, just as it is getting interesting. Three games in after preseason, just when players are starting to gel, half the squad disappears for ten days into different regimes of playing, coaching and even different climates.
No less than three breaks are scheduled in this Premier League season so the supporters, managers, players and coaching staff are in for a disjoined ten months.
The players who remain behind get to work with and will of course seek to impress their coaching team without some of the more stellar squad players to distract. Certainly the case at West Ham United with a whole host of ex academy graduates seeking to stake their claim in Potter’s starting XI. Having just worked up to match fitness, the club staged a behind closed doors friendly against Watford to keep working on Potter’s methods and to keep the remainder of the squad match-fit.
From exWHUEmployee comes news of the result – a 1-1 draw- but also news that the impressive pre-season talents of Preston Fearon were again to the fore as the 18 year old played and equalised for Potters’ makeshift Hammers side. It has been hard enough for Freddie Potts to get a look in after a successful summer tour in the USA, so for Fearon this was very much a case of trying to remind the manager what he has sitting on the bench.
Alongside the midfield addition of Mateus Fernandes and the more renown talents of George Earthy – who decided against a loan move away this season and has chosen to stay and fight for his place in the squad, young Preston has his work cut out to make headway in the squad despite his obvious talent and has hitherto been limited to turning out for the u21’s.
West Ham’s midfield does look to be more hotly contested than last year: If Guido Rodriguez reads the writing on the wall and decides to accept one of the Saudi offers which might yet take him away from West Ham this September, opportunities for George Earthy, Freddie Potts and Preston Fearon might yet materialise.
Fearon, for his part, has used this international break to drop his reminder to the Manager in the best way possible. At just 18 his time will surely come.
I would like more information on the game – perhaps that is not possible – but I feel that we can’t judge Fearon on the information that he scored without knowing how he played overall and even on the goal – was it a 20 yard screamer or a 1 yard tap in that someone put on a plate for him?
We would all love an academy player to cement his place in the first XI – but lets not get too excited too soon
Ok so you have a long list of youngster that left West Ham and are smashing it elsewhere? Has it not occurred to you that if Sullivan thought he could save £35m he’d make sure one of these youngster was put in the team.
Great news, hope to see more than the cameo he got in the States. How about a little more information on the others that played?
I have watched a lot of west ham youngsters over the years the only one I had seen in that time that I thought could walk straight on to the first team was declan rice but when I saw fearon in pre season I believe I saw the second one .don’t hang about potter this boy is a star in the making.
Potter needs to broaden his vision otherwise it will be another academy player gone.
Earlier than expected return for Guilherme is good news another player which should get more time.
“At just 18, his time will surely come”, meanwhile more successful clubs continue to give opportunities to 15 – and 16-year-olds. It is odds on that the contented and unambitious (lazy) Guido Rodriguez will continue to be chosen to play, for whatever reason I have no idea, and pick up an easy $4m while those with ambition and a future are wasted rather than tested.