West Ham have always had a knack for spotting good young players and then bringing them through to the top levels of English football.
The Hammers are famed for being known as ‘the Academy of Football,’ a tag that you don’t earn from not knowing a thing or two about spotting the next big thing.
Indeed, the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard saw their careers take off in being with the east London side and so now the onus is always going to be on the club in terms of where they find the next superstar player.
With the increasing need for instant success, though, bringing youth players through is becoming harder and harder and so we are seeing clubs using the loan system to help develop their young prospects more and more.
Indeed, we think that West Ham need to start doing that with some of their prospective next generation in order for them to learn what it’s really like to be a professional footballer.
With that in mind, then, here are two Hammers players we think should leave on loan in January…
