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West Ham birthday wishes to Grady Diangana, see you soon!

By Adam Smith

LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 03: Grady Diangana of West Ham in action during the Pre-Season Friendly match between West Ham United and Athletic Bilbao at the Olympic Stadium on August 03, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 03: Grady Diangana of West Ham in action during the Pre-Season Friendly match between West Ham United and Athletic Bilbao at the Olympic Stadium on August 03, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images) /
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A very happy birthday goes out to West Ham’s own Grady Diangana, as well as a “see you see” because this promising youngster is destined for the first team next season.

Warm birthday wishes go out to West Ham’s own Grady Diangana as he turns 22 today. If you’re unaware, Diangana has spent the 2019/2020 season on loan with West Bromwich Albion in the Championship under former Hammers boss Slaven Bilic where he has thrived.

With West Brom extremely interested in signing Grady permanently as their Premier League promotion seems to be secured, the Hammers have no intention of shipping out the young attacker, but instead are fully expecting him to return home and challenge for a starting position next season.

His stats from his loan are simply fantastic. At 21, in a new league in a new city, Diangana hit the ground running. He scored two goals in his West Brom debut against Luton Town and has gone on to score a total of five goals and six assists in his 21 games played. A hamstring injury and re-aggravation have sidelined Grady for 13 matches this season, but there is seemingly no reason to worry about his physical health at this young age.

As you can see from the above link, he’s factored into West Ham’s senior team under Manuel Pellegrini and has produced some highlight-reel skills and goals in this brief stint. He’s also scored some absolutely beautiful goals for the U23 team and has also impressed at the U21 and U20 levels for the England national team, as well.

Where does he factor in at West Ham then? Initially, as a bench player. However, Diangana’s versatility will be his biggest asset in securing match-time and getting valuable minutes to prove he deserves a spot. He’s played both left and right mid/wing with West Brom and has primarily played left-wing with West Brom. Should one of Felipe Anderson and or Andriy Yarmolenko be sold, the like-for-like replacement is already here.

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David Moyes has also been keen on using Grady next season. With his intentions being to reshape the Hammers with under 25 players, primarily British-born who have come up through the Championship, Diangana checks all of these boxes. For now, we’ll settle on Happy Birthday, but in the near future, it’ll be much more for the Irons homegrown star.