The Academy of Football is synonymous with West Ham United. The youth system has produced some of the best players to grace the Premier League, but the recent clearing out of players in the January transfer window has supporters second-guessing the once-great backbone of this club.
January has come and gone with only two signings to prop up the club. First was the signing of Brazilian centre-back Luizão from São Paulo on January first, followed by Danny Ings coming from Aston Villa.
Luizão joined the U21s while Danny Ings immediately made the bench against Everton and inevitably was injured in his first short cameo with the Irons. Luizão’s addition was arbitrary but clearly one spurred on by the South American scouts the club has, while Ings’ addition addressed the forward depth issue in the first team.
West Ham’s Academy of Football is being cleared out as a transitional period approaches.
Now, onto the departures. Most notably, West Ham shipped out promising young right-back Harrison Ashby to Newcastle United for £3m. The move came after a few months of contract discussions saw the player holding out for a wage increase that would put him in line with first-team players.
Newcastle expressed their interest in the Summer but West Ham wanted to keep hold of Ashby to try and work to a solution that would keep him with the club long term. A lengthy injury layoff lead to the January transfer window where the club opted to accept the Magpies’ offer of £3m for the player who was going to be out of contract at the end of the year.
West Ham tried on multiple occasions to negotiate a contract that would reflect the impact Ashby has had in the Academy and not hamstring their financial situation with a prospect as they had with Reese Oxford, but it appears Ashby was more confident in his abilities to unseat Kieran Trippier instead of Vladimir Coufal.
The reality is that this is a money move for both the player and West Ham. Newcastle’s deep pockets saw an offer the club couldn’t turn down, an offer that no club in World football would likely make for this player. Likewise, while his wages are undisclosed, Ashby signed a “long-term contract” with Newcastle that undoubtedly has him paid well.
Outside of the Ashby saga, West Ham also permanently transferred out left-back Manny Longelo to Birmingham, centre-back Will Greenidge to Colchester United, and midfielder Pierre Ekwah to Sunderland.
Longelo’s move came in the final minutes of the transfer window with the fullback remaining at the club he was loaned to at the start of the season. Many had him pegged for first-team football after he played well against Dynamo Zagreb in the Europa League last season, however, his time at West Ham was cut short.
Greenidge, the 20-year-old defender also cut loose, hadn’t been on the radar of many supporters who mainly track the first team, but a move to League Two Colchester United shows where his level is at currently.
Lastly is the move of Pierre Ekwah to Sunderland. Ekwah will join former academy starlet Aji Alese in the Black Cats squad after he too was surprisingly let go. Ekwah, who was doing well in the PL2 this year with 5 goals in 11 matches, was snatched up from the Chelsea academy just last season. Likely in search of a better opportunity for playing time, Ekwah opted for the Championship over development match time.
It’s hard to blame any players for their decisions in these situations, and on the surface is very easy to blame West Ham. All of these players are going to immediately be either bench or rotational players in the first team of the clubs they’ve joined, which is a higher position than where they’d have been at West Ham.
But, what is a Premier League club to do, especially in a relegation battle? Youth is injected into a first team in two ways – through injury, or through luxury. Injury has Divin Mubama close to factoring into the first-team attack, but centre-back depth has sustained injury issues thus far and the fullbacks have been healthy.
Luxury is just something this team doesn’t have this year. That luxury is breathing space in the table or the ability to lean on effective goal-scoring to allow youth players to get Premier League minutes. West Ham has neither.
You also can’t blame David Moyes for using senior players to try and get his team out of a relegation scrap. Moyes relies on the academy coaches for their recommendations on players and does include youth players in first-team training, especially before Cup matches. Moyes isn’t dead-set on eliminating the Academy of football, he’s just trying to win games.
Supporters are also fickle on this issue, exacerbated by social media soap box yelling. The same supporters who tweet or comment ‘West Ham should be all over this signing’ a million times a transfer window (and winge when another team signs literally any player), are the same ones demanding youth players make the first team.
Which is it, new players starting or youth players being given a spot? Both cannot exist in one team at a rate that will keep the social media armchair managers happy, so the countless accounts that shout nonsense can be ignored for the most part.
The reality about the Academy of Football is that it needs a makeover on the player side. A few names will come through and make an impact, Mubama for one and Ollie Scarles seems to be another, but if the professional coaches, scouts, and football analysts this club employs deem a player unlikely to be a Premier League starter, Moyes and the club have to trust them.
Sure, you’ll get burned eventually by players like Toni Martinez now of FC Porto, but for every Martinez, there will be a few Jeremy Ngakia’s who had everyone thinking he was a legitimate Premier League starter. Prospect analysis is a craps shoot at best and with relegation on the line the academy clear-out is more understandable despite still being unfortunate for West Ham supporters.