From the age of 10 through to 12 young Jack Collison was part of Peterborough’s youth set up (in your face Adrian Durham), he then spent his early teen footballing development playing for Cambridge United, at 16 years old in 2005 Jack was forced to leave Cambridge after they suffered relegation and disbanded their youth team to cut costs. Jack then had a successful trial with West Ham and Cambridge’s loss was fortunately West Hams huge gain.
Jack’s big break came in the 2008/9 season under Gianfranco Zola where he made 24 appearances for the Hammers scoring 3 goals. His second season with West Ham was much of the same stats wise before serious injury ruined his 3 rd full season.
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What I find interesting is that last season in the Championship was by far Jack’s best season from a statistical perspective however most fans would agree don’t think we saw anything like best of him.
For the coming Premier League season Jack will have to up his game. Last season’s performances were sometimes patchy, other times JC was immense. If Jack is to make a huge contribution to our season he will have to be at the very top of his game week in week out.
Do we know what JC’s best position is? JC can play from a wide area or in a more central attacking midfield role. I suspect that Kevin Nolan might be a hindrance to JC who may well prefer to operate in the offensive midfield role that Kevin Nolan plays.
Jack has now had time to recover from a severe injury, although he might be unavailable for the Premier League kick off West Ham fans are hopeful the lads injury problems are behind him.
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I really think this is going to be a big season for Jack and it’s time for him to show he is an international class midfielder who can operate consistently at the highest level.
Jack should weigh in with a few important goals next season, his energetic performances will be crucial to us when we are trying to deny the top teams space in which to operate. Jack will also need to keep his head as the team cannot afford a repeat of the incident that saw him red carded for a bad challenge on Jimmy Kebe last season (we all wanted JC to take Kebe out but he cannot help us survive if he is banned).
There is no doubt Jack Collison is a quality player and I look forward to seeing him make that quality count for West Ham as much as possible next season. With the arrival of Mohamed Diame and Alou Diarra West Ham have even more midfield options. JC has it within himself to up things a level and shine hopefully the signings will bring out the best in him rather than push him down the pecking order.
Thanks for reading,
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Only problem is he hasn’t trained with the squad since before the play off final he was sometimes over used last season still not fully recovered form his awful injury.
I think it will be a while before we see him at his best again, dont be surprised if we dont see him make a contribution till around or after christmas
Sorry but can’t see him pushing out the new signings or Noble and Nolan but reasonable cover when we get our normal injuries !!!!!
I would just like to see him fit and being able to play. He has had such a bad time since the death of his Dad he came on to play the next game after that when some of his age may have folded. I hope that he is given a fair chance. I read the piece from Julian Dicks today and i agree with him, Yes we have made a few signing BUT who the hell are they, He doesn’t know them or heard for them as many fans do not either. We should keep our West Ham boys and l just hope Sam does not force him, Tompkins and Noble out because he like BIG STRAPPING players. So come on JC get better soon and show us all what you have got, including the passion you have for the club, WHICH l hasten to add the new boys will not have and will take another club if they show themselves off well this Season and they are targeted. We would do better if we had more loyalty and consistency at our club
JC is our best attacking central midfielder by a mile. Nolan is very effective in his limited role, Noble was the heartbeat of the team last season. Diame and Diarra will bring competition but I don’t think either of them will give us the midfield flair and element of the unknown that JC brings. I’m really interested as to how Sam will fit people into his system, especially when he has a full squad to choose from. I think we’ll see a different starting 11 every week.