As we moved onto another manager and another era, there was one thing more than anything that I hoped would change. This one thing was that we would now see an increased use of academy players in the squad and starting 11. Sadly, this has not been the case.
At the start of his appointment, we were told that Lopetegui, perhaps due to his experiences with the Spanish national team at young levels, would not hesitate to use youth players. At this particular moment, however, he has had very few of them feature in training with the first team, let alone playing.
The club, largely down to the good work of Mark Noble, have done well to secure the long-term futures of a number of these academy talents recently. Fin Herrick, Oliver Scarles and Lewis Orford are just a few examples of academy players that have recently committed to long-term deals.
However a lot of the promises to the players were made upon them receiving increased opportunities to become first team players. Many of the top academy players were put out on loan to increase their development. Notably Freddie Potts went to Portsmouth, George Earthy to Bristol City and Callum Marshall to Huddersfield.
Those three have done well so far and the experience at these clubs would have benefited them greatly. With those three on loans until at least January this season, where they could be recalled should the club choose to do so, the under 21s left behind have done well to be competitive in matches without them.
Of those left behind there are some stand out players who really should be in and around the first team squad. The first is England under 19s captain Lewis Orford who was subject of a lot of attention from Aston Villa in the summer.
They were keen to use him in their first team squad but he was persuaded to remain at West Ham with a new contract which, on top of being from a huge West Ham-supporting family, was enough to convince him. He is the box-to-box midfielder with a wide range of passing that we have been crying out for this season but have yet to see.
Another is Ollie Scarles. It was two years ago that he impressed so much on his debut at 16 in Romania for us in Europe. Although a bad back injury did rule him out for a period of time, he hasn’t really been seen since. He has also represented England at youth level though.
Another who has represented England is Kaelan Casey. He is another talented academy product and great concerns were raised when the club seemed to prefer signing John Egan on a free transfer as fourth choice defender than use Kaelan. Thankfully they retracted on that decision and didn’t sign Egan but Casey hasn’t featured since.
He has been called into the squad a number of times and at the time of writing, had traveled to Nottingham with the first team. I do not see the harm in giving him and any of the other aforementioned players minutes here and there to build up their experience.
If you then feel that they are not good enough for West Ham at a minimum you would have increased their value. Take Grady Diagana as a decent example. He wasn’t particularly close to the first team but a few injuries to players in his pathway and he got selected for a League Cup game with us which he featured in.
A good performance was backed up by a few others and soon other clubs started to circulate. Then an £18m transfer offer came in from WBA and whilst the fans and players at the time were sad to see him go, it represented a good deal for the club.
Of course he is an exception to the rule but Declan Rice made the club £105m from his transfer to Arsenal and I cannot understand why our chairman, who likes a pound note, is not insisting that academy players feature more.
One alarming statistic is that the self proclaimed Academy of Football doesn’t have any current academy graduate in its ranks. What makes this more difficult to comprehend is that the current 21s, when 18s, won the league and cup.
They beat Arsenal 5-1 in the cup final yet Arsenal have already used a few of those players in their first team, we haven’t used any. I find this current situation so disappointing and it also sends a negative message out to any player wishing to sign for our academy or in their younger years too.
I hope with time the manager changes his attitude towards these players and starts to utilise them as we clearly do have the talent, they are just not being used.
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