OPINION
West Ham winger Nathan Holland must look to exit the club on loan this summer despite being given a chance to impress by being named as part of the club’s pre-season squad for the trip to Switzerland.
The Hammers confirmed via their official website that the exciting 20-year-old winger was one of the players heading to Switzerland in order to be part of the club’s intensive 12-day training camp ahead of the new season.
This opportunity has been given to Holland and he will no doubt have a chance to impress new manager Manuel Pellegrini who will be making sure that he assesses all of his players closely in Switzerland.
While Pellegrini will no doubt realise the winger’s potential from witnessing him first hand, it’s about time the 20-year-old regularly got to experience senior football in order to take the next step in his development.
Holland is unlikely to get the amount of first-team football he needs in order to make significant progress if he sticks around at the London Stadium next season even though he is been handed a chance to showcase his skills to Pellegrini.
The 20-year-old winger has only made one senior appearance for the Hammers since joining the club from Everton in 2017, as stated by the club’s official website, and that outing was made in September 2017 when he played against Bolton in the League Cup.
Since making his first-team debut Holland has continued to impress in the Hammers’ U-23 squad and last season ended his campaign having scored three goals, while assisting one, in his 12 appearances in the Premier League 2.
However his latest campaign was dramatically affected by injury as he missed three months of action, as confirmed by the Hammers’ official website, due to sustaining a hamstring tear.
The promising talent, who is an exciting speedy player best utilised on the flanks, did well to quickly recover from his injury but after missing a chunk of last season it’s too soon to rush him in to regularly playing him for the Hammers’ senior side.
Especially as Pellegrini will be aiming to end his debut season as Hammers manager with at least a comfortable top-10 finish in the league and may be even a respectable cup run.
So with that in mind in order to continue his promising development Holland should seek to move to a club on loan in this window in order to get regular senior football for the first time in his career.
Holland would be able to learn a lot from a temporary spell away from the club and the experience he picks up would give him more of a fighting chance of breaking into the senior squad next season if all goes well.
Therefore the 20-year-old must seek out a loan exit this summer in order to kick-on with his career and develop further into being a player capable of being included in Pellegrini’s plans in the near future.
