West Ham’s academy manager Terry Westley is leaving his role with the club this summer, to take up the position of a technical director overseas.
During his five years in the position of West Ham academy manager Westley was responsible for the development of players such as Grady Diangana and Declan Rice, who has gone on to be an instrumental figure at the heart of the Hammers midfield this season and earned a first international cap for England.
“I leave West Ham United feeling huge pride and with great memories of my time here, Westley told Sky Sports.
“We have made such positive strides forward in the last five years to modernise and evolve the academy, ensuring that West Ham’s long-standing reputation as one of the finest developers of young players continues to shine.”
“It was an extremely proud moment earlier this season for me to see four academy graduates – Declan Rice, Grady Diangana, Conor Coventry and Joe Powell – playing together for the first team in the League Cup tie against Macclesfield Town.”
OPINION
It will be interesting to see who West Ham announce as the replacement for Westley, after the 59-year-old helped shape the club’s academy for the last five years since being appointed academy manager in 2014. Westley faced a difficult challenge of emulating Anthony Carr, who was a hugely influential figure within the club’s academy having been in the position of academy manager since 1973. Carr oversaw the development of players such as Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Jermaine Defoe, during his spell as West Ham academy manager. Therefore, Westley had a difficult task in continuing the traditions of producing first team quality players at West Ham, and he managed to do that with the recent examples of Diangana and Rice who have both played a part in West Ham’s campaign under Manuel Pellegrini the year. West Ham will hope that whoever they name as Westley’s replacement will be able to continue the development of first team quality players at the London Stadium for the next few years.
