West Ham’s Loan Star State

Usually announcing the signing of two back-up goalkeepers would be a fairly uninteresting affair, but West Ham bringing in both Roberto and David Martin managed to raise a few eyebrows. Aside from calling into question exactly how the Director of Football model is working at the club when we’re signing players who have previously worked with the DoF/manager (Roberto) or the sons of former players (Martin), the addition of these two was followed by the revelation that their arrival would result in Nathan Trott being sent out on loan to gain some first team experience. In turn, that would allow the younger Joseph Anang to play regularly as the first choice keeper for the u-23s.

That came to fruition shortly after, with Nathan Trott going on loan to AFC Wimbledon for the duration of the season. At first glance, this would seem to be a smart decision that would make sense for all parties, but with West Ham’s recent record of developing players, especially with those who have been sent out on loan, it’s difficult to feel positive about it. Declan Rice’s emergence as a regular starter and Grady Diangana’s sporadic appearances in match day squads are perhaps signs that things are improving, but beyond that, the pickings are slim.

The only former West Ham academy players playing in the top two divisions of any major European league last year were James Tomkins at Crystal Palace, Junior Stanislas at Bournemouth, Jordan Spence and Freddie Sears at Ipswich Town, and Jermain Defoe on loan at Rangers. That’s a pitiful amount for almost 20 years of player development and a large part of those failings can be attributed to the club’s failure to utilise the loan system properly.

There are essentially 3 reasons to send a player out on loan:

1. To develop and gain experience in order to be a first team player
2. To develop and gain experience in order to raise the player’s value so they can be sold for a higher fee at a later date
3. To put the player in the shop window in order to sell them as soon as possible

These three categories aren’t set in stone and players will often move between the three over the course of their first professional contract. A player could be earmarked as a star at 17 but, for whatever reason, the evaluation of their ability can change, so they get sent out on a couple of loans to show the level they’re capable of playing at in order to help the club can maximise the return they get when it’s time to sell. If those loans don’t work out and the player’s contract starts to run down, the focus shifts to finding somewhere for the player to get first team football so the club have a chance to sell for a fee rather than releasing them for nothing.

Players on the fringes of the first team squad at West Ham (Edimilson Fernandes/Jordan Hugill/Sam Byram/Reece Oxford) all got dumped into the third category last season, with varying success as Fernandes was sold to Mainz and Byram secured a move to Norwich.

But it’s the other two categories that have caused West Ham problems. Their strategy regarding player development has been muddled at best and outright negligent at worst.

When it comes to talking about loans, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on players playing at the highest level they possibly can. And while there is something in that — you don’t want to send your golden child out to play on awful pitches and to train at clubs with terrible facilities if that’s not going to replicate the first team experience at your club — the level they’re playing at is a less important factor than the fit between player and loaning club.

There’s increasingly a diminishing gap in quality between the lowers tiers of English football; in the last twelve months, we’ve seen Lincoln, Tranmere, and Luton all achieve back-to-back promotions from the National League to League One and from League Two to the Championship respectively. Admittedly these are relatively large clubs for that standard of football who had sunk down the pyramid due to mismanagement of various kinds and are now in the process of bouncing back, but even so, the ability of these teams to sail through the leagues demonstrates both the quality of coaching on display in the lower reaches as well as the lack of a stark difference in quality between these divisions.

As such, without a hugely varying level of playing ability, finding the best possible fit between club and player is the most significant aspect of sending a player out on loan, whether that’s to find a playing style that suits the loanee’s natural game or to find one that is radically different to improve the player’s versatility. If, for instance, you wanted to encourage one of your young central defenders to pass the ball out from the back, you’d be far better off sending them to Forest Green, who play a possession-oriented style built around short passes and positional rotation, than you would be sending them to AFC Wimbledon or Wycombe, who both generally play a more attritional, direct style of football, even though the latter two compete at a higher standard.

Doing that requires the parent club to have enough knowledge about potential loan destinations and enough knowledge about their own players to know exactly what they’re trying to achieve with a potential loan. It’s clear that West Ham are lacking that clarity.

For example, take Vashon Neufville, a 19-year old left-back who joined Newport County in January on loan to the end of the season where he only made two first team appearances before returning to West Ham early. On the surface, it looks like this reflects quite poorly on Neufville who clearly failed to make the most of the opportunity he was given. In reality, Neufville was sent into a difficult situation: Newport’s first choice left-back, Dan Butler, had been ever present for them over the last three seasons and his ability to cross the ball from out wide was an integral part of how Newport create chances; there was very little hope of Neufville ever actually displacing Butler and therefore little chance of playing meaningful minutes.

A few weeks ago, it was announced that West Ham weren’t renewing Neufville’s contract and that he was being released this summer. If that decision was made as a result of his poor performance out on loan, then the club are at least partially responsible for that by setting him up to fail. If the club had already decided they weren’t going to offer him a new contract before he went out on loan, the club have let him down by not sending him somewhere that he’d have a realistic chance of playing enough to secure himself his next contract elsewhere.

Joe Powell was also sent out on loan to League Two in January and had a marginally better time of it. Powell ended up at Northampton Town where he made ten first team appearances, six of which were starts. With that said, he spent almost as much time sitting on the bench or in the stands, failing to get on the pitch during eight matchdays. While that may have been a consequence of Powell’s performances, it also feels like a situation that could have been largely avoided. Powell has mostly played as a number ten or a wide forward for West Ham’s youth teams, whereas Keith Curle has almost exclusively played in a 3–5–2 system throughout his managerial career, a shape that makes it difficult to incorporate players of Joe Powell’s profile.

Powell is now 20 and recently signed a new one-year contract with West Ham. It’s a decision that makes very little sense unless he’s going to be involved with the first team next season. Having him stick around to play another year of u-23s football will benefit nobody, as we’ll end up releasing him next year at 21 years old with 11 first team appearances to his name. Sending him out on loan would appear to make little sense either from the club’s perspective — there’s no benefit to increasing his value for a potential transfer if he’s out of contract next summer anyway. But if the club do decide to loan him out, it’s in Powell’s best interests for them to put him somewhere where he able to play regularly in his best position so he can showcase what he can do properly.

One loan this season that appeared to have a bit more thought behind it was sending Marcus Browne to Karl Robinson’s Oxford United. Oxford have had an excellent recent record of developing young players such as John Lundstram, Kemar Roofe, and Callum O’Dowda before selling them on to teams at higher levels. Add in a coach with a good track record of bringing through his own players like Dele Alli and George Baldock at MK Dons and Joe Aribo at Charlton, as well as overseeing productive loan spells for the likes of Benik Afobe, Patrick Bamford, and Jay Dasilva at those two clubs. It all added up to what looked like a productive environment to send a young player to grow.

Browne’s season started well but he faded and fizzled as the season progressed. He wasn’t helped by unrest behind the scenes as Oxford contended with issues over the Kassam Stadium and disruptive ownership in general, but the second half of Browne’s season was disjointed due to injury problems, the fatigue associated with playing his first full season in senior football, and the general inconsistency that comes with being a winger.

He had a contract with West Ham until next summer and, as he’s now 21, he would’ve take a senior spot in the official Premier League squad if he’d been kept around the first team, so the club decided to sell. The fee Middlesbrough paid for Browne was undisclosed but has been reported as anywhere between £200k-£500k, a pittance considering League One players in their early twenties like Matt Clarke and Karlan Grant have been sold in multi-million pound deals in the last two windows.

That’s partially down to West Ham being abysmal at negotiating sales prices for their talent (see also: the Byram fee) but also due to the fact that both Clarke and Grant had far more experience (due to productive loan spells!) and a better track record in first team football than Marcus Browne did, despite all of them being a similar age. Browne was sold on the cheap because West Ham had previously failed to find good loan environments for him earlier on in his contract. They failed to maximise his development, which is a major failing, even if he’s not going to be a Premier League level player.

While fit is more important than level of competition, there is a need to build some progression into the development of a young player in order to learn more about him. Collating that data is vital for the parent club’s own purposes, as well important for the player, as it provides evidence of capability to potential buying clubs when it comes time to sell them.

By all accounts, Josh Cullen had a good season for Charlton last year and usually you’d suggest that’s a sign of a successful loan spell. But was it? We already knew that Cullen was capable of playing well in League One after his spell with Bradford City in 15/16. The next season after that, he followed Bradford City manager Phil Parkinson to Bolton Wanderers in the Championship — a move that seemed to make a lot of sense — but after being heavily involved in the first eight games of season, Cullen was dropped before eventually being recalled by West Ham in January.

He may have played well for Charlton this season, but did West Ham or any prospective buyers learn anything about Cullen’s ability or potential from another season playing in League One? Did he realistically add anything new to his game that wasn’t already there? At 23, the chances of Cullen becoming a regular in the Premier League are paper thin, so this last loan spell should have either to the Championship or to a club abroad somewhere, so the club could have a stronger negotiating position to work from when they eventually cash in on Cullen.

The loan strategy at West Ham has been a mess. From sending players to be back ups, sending them to clubs who don’t use players in their favoured positions, to not aiding development by providing more difficult challenges, there has been a lack of purpose and clarity to West Ham’s approach to player development away from Chadwell Heath.

Which is why it makes it hard to feel positive about sending Nathan Trott out on loan. Trott has been involved with various England age groups and is clearly a young man with considerable talent and potential, and it would be a real shame to see West Ham fail to help him reach the peak of his potential due to mismanaging these crucial formative years. The one positive to take is that Aaron Ramsdale enjoyed a good spell with the Dons last season, so perhaps we’ve been a bit more judicious this time round. There’s been talk that Nathan Holland is to be sent out on loan as well — he’s now 21 and has never made a senior appearance, so he’s desperate for some first team football. West Ham need to make sure they get this first loan move right for him.

If West Ham are serious about their commitment to bringing through academy players into the first team, they need to address the way they send players out on loan and it needs to start now before they squander away the promise of yet more talented youngsters.