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Why Bring In Young Talent And Not Play Them?

nevillenixon's picture
Submitted by nevillenixon on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 19:41

West Ham United have signed 18 year old Montenegro International Sead Haksabanovic on a five year contract for a fee of around £3.5 Million from Swedish club Halmstads BK, is he one of the "ones for the future" Co-Owner David Sullivan hinted at when recently discussing the club's recruitment policy, or is the plan to try and unleash him on teams that have never seen him?.

Haksabanovic was handed his Halmstads debut in 2015 at the age of 15 and the attacking midfielder went on to make 70 appearances in Swedish football virtually keeping the club afloat. Haksabanovic represented Sweden at youth level before switching his allegiance to Montenegro and made his debut for the national side in June, he came on as a substitute in Montenegro's 4-1 World Cup qualifying victory over Armenia.
"I'm really happy to be here , it's a dream come true, West Ham is a big club and it is a nice feeling to have signed, the move happened quite fast, we heard that they wanted me, so I was interested to hear the plan for me and when I did I was very pleased." beamed Haksabanovic to the official www.whufc.com site.

So there we have it, another talented youngster arrives at The London Stadium but what will happen to this obviously gifted player? Well he's not very big! Some might wonder how he would react to the pace and physical demands of the Premiership, others assume he has been brought in as cover for Manu Lanzini in case he gets injured or suspended. The other option is to send him out on loan, but why buy a talented player and send him out on loan before at least giving him a chance to show his worth? It seems that Slaven Billic is keen to retain Toni Martinez, Declan Rice and Nathan Holland from the friendlies for some form of first team duties, will he do the same with Haksabanovic without running the rule over him thoroughly?

When Martin Samuelson first arrived at the club from Manchester City great things were expected of him, and indeed he showed a lot of early promise, but then injury, loss of form and loss of confidence took a massive toll on the lad. It is obvious that West Ham do want to bring Academy players and other youngsters through the ranks, sending prize prospect Reece Oxford out to Germany the club want him to learn freed of British footballing shackles. right from the beginning Slaven Billic was very vocal about protecting and nurturing Oxford. A similar approach seems to be happening with Josh Cullen and Reece Burke.

What confuses a lot of Hammers and indeed a lot of other domestic club's fans is, why do young players arrive at high profile clubs for insane money and play straight away at an age, when domestic teams seem frightened or unwilling to give their young players a similar opportunity?

West Ham United are definitely not Chelsea, and are therefore unable to 'stock pile' young players and send them out on loan, the club has to try and think outside the box, maybe giving youngsters significant cameo appearances but then take them out the firing line for a while, a sort of player guerilla tactic of hit and run. After all it was that element of the unknown and youth that saw the first memorable victory of Billic's first season as manager, away to Arsenal when no one had given West Ham a prayer! - Ed

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asheshammer's picture

Haksabanovic had trials with Manure, Man City, Liverpool -- and they simply didn't want him. He had wanted to try for Tottenham next ... I think the lesson to draw might be that WHUFC spent £3.5M on a wing and a prayer and will find that they have to loan him out just like so many other "wonderkids" that we've signed. Some fans who haven't heard this message before are enthusiastic: "Guess what, we just signed the wonderkid", but those of us who have been around since Savio know that not one single wonderkid has ever shown up for the first team like Harry Kane for Spurs. This signing is smoke and mirrors. Prove me wrong Sully, Slaven and Sead!

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275 users have voted.

moncur,potts the youngers

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222 users have voted.
hammergirl's picture

all those years ago:-) and seeing all that mega Wonga slip through there fingers Sullivan was never going to miss a potential money making future transfer....of course this is west ham so expect him to be playing at Barnet in 5 years

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255 users have voted.

West Ham are still willing to spend another 25 million pounds for Sporting Lisbon midfielder William Carvalho. Man City, Arsenal and West Brom are also interested in signing him. A bid for Jota the Spanish attacker has been turned down by Brentford as West Ham were apparently only offering 3 million and Brentford will release him for 8 million. Do not be surprised if they come to terms for 5 million pounds for this player. If all these rumours are true, then West Ham will have quite a deep squad compared to the previous seasons. Wonder what the starting lineup will be this Sunday against Man U?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4775762/West-Ham-prepa...
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11748/10914161/jota-attracts-inte...

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asheshammer's picture

But the depth won't be there by Sunday. Cheikh and Antonio will be out. Still have a good side, though. No time like the present. COYI.

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272 users have voted.
Dartford Bhoy's picture

Complete waste of time taking these youngsters unless you see a REAL gem prepared to give them a fighting chance in the team. You have to go big on the money and not screw up bringing in a plum like Savio. We were in the past linked with the true football greats with links to young Namar and a story I heard that Pards wanted to buy a young Drogba but the board refused the £10M price tag and a couple of years later Chelsea paid £24M and the rest was history! Im not saying we could have kept him but the bank balance would have looked good!

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270 users have voted.

We may have to use youth, as I've just heard Lanzini is out for another 2 games. Along with kouyate, Carroll,sakho and Antonio. We also have question marks over the fitness to play with cresswell, Collins and possibly Reid.

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236 users have voted.
asheshammer's picture

I saw that West Ham are quickly preparing terms on a new deal to keep Manu at West Ham. And you have to wonder where the Coutinho story is leading: "One out, one in" they were saying. Be a disaster if we lost Lanzini to Liverpool now.

By the way, I really HATE the way that the transfer window being open when the season starts interferes with all this. Teams are not set or ready, so the first few weeks of the season are pretty crap. Shows disrespect for fans who pay good money.

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