OPINION
West Ham should heed the remarks of Sky Sports presenter Tom White when it comes to deciding what to do with defender Reece Oxford.
The presenter earlier in July while on Sky Sports’ Transfer Talk ,(Sky Sports News, 9:51am, Friday, July 5th), claimed that the Hammers defender could still be the star he was previously expected to be.
“Reece Oxford and Timothy Fosu-Mensah very young, could still be the stars we always expected,” said White on Sky Sports’ Transfer Talk (Sky Sports News, 9:51am, Friday, July 5th).
These comments should be ringing around the heads of the decision-makers of the Hammers as it could avoid them making a regrettable decision regarding Oxford given there are now clubs considering his services.
Sky Sports reported on Sunday that Oxford’s potential £2.7m move to German club Augsburg could be back on after negotiations re-opened last week, but also claimed that Fulham and Swansea City were monitoring the player’s situation as they’re considering offering to take him on a season-long loan.
Given that the broadcaster points out that the centre-back isn’t part of Manuel Pellegrini’s squad for the club’s pre-season tour of Asia, it’s clear he needs to be somewhere else for his 2019/20 campaign in order to kick his career on.
But perhaps, the Hammers shouldn’t write him off completely, at least just yet, by selling him.
This is especially the case when there are two Championship clubs possibly willing to borrow him as a season in England’s second-tier could be the making of him and turn him into the player he is truly capable of being.
After all, he still is only 20-years-old.
Oxford previously broke into the Hammers’ first-team in the 2015/16 season, making 12 appearances for the senior side, and looked to have a bright future ahead of him.
The 20-year-old then had a bit of disastrous 2016/17 campaign as an ankle injury ruled him out for several matches, and a loan spell with Championship side Reading, ended with him not being able to establish himself in their first-team.
Oxford’s 2017/18 campaign saw him go on loan to Borussia Monchengladbach and he only managed to feature eight times, completing 90 minutes on two occasions for them, so that move didn’t really see him given a fair chance to unlock his potential either.
It was a similar story last season as Oxford had to wait all the way until January to get a loan move and when he did, it wasn’t the biggest success story ever during his brief stint at Augsburg.
The 20-year-old managed to feature for only 505 minutes, as per Transfermarkt, in the Bundesliga for Augsburg, and was part of the team that lost 8-1 to Wolfsburg on the final day of the season.
However, given Augsburg are convinced enough to try to sign Oxford permanently, surely that tells everyone that Oxford must have something about him that’s worth keeping an eye on.
So with that in mind and the fact White is probably correct to point out he’s only 20-years-old still, as that’s easy to forget given when he broke into the senior team, the Hammers should give Oxford one more chance to prove himself by loaning him; not selling him.
