West Ham insider ExWHUemployee revealed on the latest episode of The West Ham Way podcast that several youth team players haven’t been offered professional contracts by the club.
David Moyes’ men have impressed this season, with their 49-point haul enough to see them challenge for the Champions League places in the upper echelons of the Premier League.
Their success has been built on solid foundations thanks to experienced players such as Angelo Ogbonna, Aaron Cresswell and Lukasz Fabianski, but it doesn’t appear as though these ageing stars will be welcoming many youth products into the first-team any time soon.
The capital club have a good reputation for producing many of the nation’s top talents over the years, and Moyes has given Ben Johnson four top-flight starts this season, however, ExWHUemployee claimed a number of academy hopefuls haven’t made the cut this time around.
He said: “Apparently we haven’t offered new contracts to the following players, I mean I can’t say I’ve heard of all of them, but they haven’t often contracts to [Josh] Okotcha – which is not Jay-Jay – [Sam] Caiger, [Sean] Adarkwa, who I’ve definitely heard of, [Daniel] Jinadu, they haven’t been offered their pro deals.”
TIF Thoughts on West Ham…
The likes of Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and current club captain Mark Noble are all products of West Ham’s production line in recent seasons, showcasing the quality of the setup in east London.
However, football is a notoriously hard professional to get into, especially at Premier League level, and the young talents that are set to be released by the Hammers can still be proud of their efforts.
The youngsters may still get picked up by other clubs following their departure this summer, and we wish them every success for the future.