Reece Oxford
It has been a terrible start to the season for the Hammers with three back-to-back losses. After being completely outplayed in the 4-0 defeat to Liverpool in the first game, Manuel Pellegrini’s men showed a lot of character in the next two matches but failed to maintain composure and succumbed to defeats at the hands Bournemouth and Arsenal.
West Ham brought in significant reinforcements to strengthen their squad over the summer and did not hesitate to break the bank. Signing Felipe Anderson from Lazio has paid dividends so far as the Brazilian has by far been the most impressive player for the club. Another big signing, Andriy Yarmolenko, has looked promising in the limited opportunities that he has been handed.
While the Hammers have added a lot of resources to their squad depth, it is now time for Manuel Pellegrini to offload some of his fringe players with just a few days remaining for the transfer market to close.
And the offloading process may come at the expense of the back line in the form of 19-year-old Englishman Reece Oxford. Oxford joined West Ham at the U13 level and has been a part of their academy since then. He made his Premier League debut in 2015 at the age of 16, thus becoming the second-youngest player to start in an English top-flight game.
The youngster has mostly been away from London Stadium, spending time on loan stints with Reading and Borussia Monchengladbach.
Standing at 6ft 3 inches, the youngster has a towering frame for a centre-back and his pace belies his physicality. Although he is good in the air and has shown impressive tackling skills, Oxford needs time to work on his positional awareness and composure. He has the potential of becoming a Rio Ferdinand in the future but needs regular minutes to work on his game.
West Ham, on the other hand, have quite a lot of resources for the centre-back position. They started their season off with Angelo Ogbonna and Fabian Balbuena as the centre-back pairing but Pellegrini’s decision to play a high line against Liverpool proved to be suicidal as the Hammers crumbled to a 4-0 defeat.
In the next game, Balbuena and Ogbonna looked fine until they were shocked by Callum Wilson’s piece of individual brilliance, which should raise a lot of questions about West Ham’s defence.
During the transfer window, the Hammers purchased Issa Diop from Toulouse to add solidity to their defence and the youngster looked quite impressive in his outing against Arsenal.
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As one can see, West Ham already have Diop, Balbuena and Ogbonna as contenders for the centre-back position. And Reece Oxford, despite being a promising prospect, is still at the developmental stage of his career and would just be making up the numbers.
Hence, it would be a wise move from Pellegrini to loan out the 19-year-old. In doing so, West Ham will take a leap towards enabling their prodigy to mount a challenge for a first-team spot in the coming season.
