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David Moyes shares Divin Mubama update after West Ham United breakthrough
West Ham manager David Moyes heaped praise on academy star Divin Mubama but explained why the youngster doesn’t train often with his squad.
The “brilliant” 18-year-old netted just 11 minutes after entering the fray in the 4-0 Europa Conference League victory at home to AEK Larnaca on Thursday (16 March), scoring his first professional goal for the Hammers.
The Hammers academy star has been in sensational goalscoring form for the Under-23s this season, notching 11 goals from 15 Premier League 2 games and Moyes liked what he saw from the forward on Thursday but admitted he doesn’t have room for him in the first team squad.
Speaking to Football.London [17 March], he said: “Every time Divin has come on, I tell you what he does, he runs and he does the work and he doesn’t think about twice his effort or anything he does. Because of that, we’re growing to him all of the time. He’s done really well and I’m pleased.
Asked if the 18-year-old trains regularly with the first team, he said: “He’s not done it so much because at the moment, centre forwards, we are pretty full in that area but a period back, he was. We will bring him up when we think he is ready and he is, he does train with us quite a lot but not all the time.”
Baffling
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West Ham United are supposed to be a club built on the successes and growth of the youth setup and the fact that arguably one of their biggest talents in the youth setup isn’t training with the first-team squad regularly is quite baffling.
Mubama is enjoying a tremendous 2022/23 campaign for the Under-23s, pulling up numbers that make him a sure bet for the Hammers’ first team.
Certainly, Moyes is stacked with quality at centre-forward with Danny Ings, Michail Antonio and Gianluca Scamacca to choose from but it doesn’t hurt to have Mubama be given some guidance by his quality teammates in order to boost his development and maturity.
Look at how Declan Rice entered the West Ham fray upon his emergence. Slaven Bilic took a big risk by handing Rice his first-team debut in the 2016/17 campaign, six years on he’s now emerged as one of the best defensive midfielders on the planet.
Mubama must be given that same faith, he could certainly turn out to be one of the best forwards of his generation if given the tools to do so.