West Ham's Youngsters Get Their 90 Minutes In The Spotlight, And Will There Be More To Come?

West Ham 3-0 Lusitanos

Diafra Sakho (40,45) James Tomkins (58)

Europa League First Qualifying Round Leg 1

Sakho scores in the 40th minute to break the resistance. Does Sakho
have the stamina to last in a big season for West Ham?

Who would have thought it? A qualifying game against an Andorran team, the second best Andorran team from a semi-professional premier division proved to be a stroll for West Ham, their first team front three combining to feed Sakho twice and then Tomkins to all but end the tie and allow the Hammers to take tactical advice from two children at half time. A painful experience for the Andorran side who can consider themselves unlucky to have drawn a Premier League side in the first qualifying round, but on the other hand West Ham can already look forward to the rest of qualifying; six games West Ham will have to manoeuvre their way through, just to get to the group stage. 

For now they can relax. The Andorrans threat was extremely limited; Romero Ballus, the striker into whom a cursory inquest reveals he has played one game this season (oddly enough!), latched onto an error from debutant Reece Oxford, only to drag a tame shot wide. His second shot was after Sakho scored West Ham's opener, was from the half way line and on target; Lustianos' only shot on target of the game, which is a nice little story to tell the children, as long as you exaggerate it a bit. 

Josh Cullen was a bright spark against Lusitanos, and could
have a big role to play in the overpacked 15-16 West Ham
fixture list.

West Ham will have many difficult games this season; this was not one of them. What it was, was an opportunity for younger players to make an impression. Reece Oxford made his debut, becoming the youngest player to ever play for West Ham at 16 years old. His midfield partner was the just turned 20 Diego Poyet, son of the ex-Sunderland manager Gus. 18 year old Reece Burke, 19 year old Lewis Page started in defence. 19 year old Josh Cullen, 18 year old Djair Parfitt-Williams and 20 year old Elliot Lee joined them, making the first West Ham squad in nine years a team of seven up and coming youth players hoping to crack into West Ham's elite first team over the coming season; and this isn't completely unrealistic, but it is, but it isn't. Making sense so far? 

It's worth remembering that for a youth player breaking into the first team is usually very difficult; for ample example of this we only need to look at Tottenham's Shearer-lite Harry Kane, who was kept out of premier league action for months by Roberto Soldado, the 30 million talent badly struggling for a scoring touch. Experience is always trusted over youth talent; that is the rule of just about every top tier league in Europe barring certain paupers, and that is unlikely to change any time soon. Most of these youngsters will not make it at West Ham; even the cream of the cream of the crop, as these players are, find their pathways to the first team blocked by players like Diafre Sakho, or Mark Nolan or Alex Song or James Collins. It is one thing to excell in the reserve leagues and games like this most recent stroll in the park. It is quite another for them to break into West Ham's highly paid side before the season kicks off. 

Have to start somewhere... Harry Kane scoring a hattrick in the Europa
League, before taking the striking role in the Premier League.

But then this is a West Ham side in a unique position. Before the season ends West Ham could play 23 Europa League games, 38 Premier League games, 10 FA Cup games and 7 League Cup games for a utterly vast total of 78 games. To say that this is a lot of games is roughly equivalent to saying ten London marathons in a month is 'a bit tough'. It's true but it doesn't quite convey the underwear loading terror of such a season. Liverpool in 2000/2001 could claim to have played even close to that many games in winning the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League. Manchester United too achieved a similar amount of games in their more prestigious treble two years earlier. It is not a simple thing to be overloaded with games. Teams get relegated by such a schedule, teams fall spectacularly from grace through such a schedule. 

See Newcastle under Alan Pardrew. 5th in 11-12 without the Europa League, 16th the next season with the Europa League, and flirting with relegation. There were caveats to this; Newcastle lost their stylish playmaker Cabaye in the January transfer window, and still made the quarter finals. But at the end of the day, the table rarely lies. 

But this overloading of schedule is also the perfect oppurtunity for the young players pipe up and say 'Hey boss! I can play!'. Hell, Slaven Bilic (Or 'Englands Voldemort' as he likes to be known) should know to play the kids; he is unlikely to want to rely on a consistent first 11 or 13 like Mourinho for a season of this vast magnitude. Very few teams have the depth to maintain the required quality on numerous fronts. West Ham have ideally got to at least put in honourable performances in the Europa League (a competition which has a very attractive Champions League spot waiting at the summit), and avoid being sucked into a relegation fight, as co-chairman David Sullivan has mentioned. A relegation fight would come to affect their performances in Europe, one way or another, and would best be avoided all together if possible. 

But that said, this is the type of situation in which youth players can make their careers, the type of situation in which the aspiring talents of West Ham can challenge seasoned professionals from top divisions across Europe. Harry Kane began making his name last season in the Europa League, especially with a hattrick against Greek side Asteras Tripolis. 

Slaven Bilic, here being presented to Upton Park, has some hard
rotation to do this season. Talented youngsters from this early stage
of the campaign could have huge roles to play.

West Ham's youngsters could do the same, and there are good signs. 16 year old Oxford looks a very composed and technical player, and is built with the physicality of a professional footballer already; he hit a fierce shot just wide in the second half. Josh Cullen in midfield was bright against Lustianos, laying on a chance for the livewire Elliot Lee and hitting the crossbar himself in the dying minutes. Diego Poyet was calm and composed in midfield. Lewis Page was industrious down the left, giving Jarvis the room to torment his opposite number. You could easily see some of these kids given a chance to take the work load off of senior players. Whether Bilic has the courage to play the kids in premier league games or not, he will need them for the bigger picture. 

The opposition wasn't the best, as you would expect in the Europa League first round; it was a niggly performance of lots of scrap and no attack. But it was a new beginning for many of these kids you would expect. The 15-16 season more then many of recent years will be a trial by coalfire for West Ham. And the development of the younger players could well end up defining the club. What's a terrifying season afterall, if you get one or two new professionals out of it that will serve the club for years to come? 

And so, I will be watching West Ham this season with added interest.