Jamal Baptiste unlikely to be given West Ham senior team push
David Moyes will not be turning to youngster Jamal Baptiste to solve the defensive crisis at West Ham, according to Roshane Thomas.
Kurt Zouma, Angelo Ogbonna and Ben Johnson all face multiple weeks out through injury.
This will be a real test of their squad depth with Craig Dawson and Issa Diop their only senior centre-backs left.
Baptiste, who is 17, has impressed for the Hammers youth sides, but Thomas, The Athletic journalist, believes that he is too young to make his senior bow.
He said on the You Irons Podcast, “Baptiste is too young. He’ll take some more time I reckon. I don’t see him taking that next step just yet.”
Makes sense
There is plenty of hype surrounding Baptiste and we’re eager to see how he fares once he breaks into the first team.
In December 2020, Claret and Hugh, labelled him “brilliant” and stated, “[He] has been the most hailed academy product since Declan Rice and is showing at the tender age of 16 that he truly has the world at his feet.”
However, he’s currently only 17 and may not be mature enough to walk into this defensive crisis and come out of it with flying colours.
Players at that age have to slowly be integrated into the first team so that they can understand how different the senior game is compared to what they’re used to.
It makes sense for Moyes to ask someone like Aaron Cresswell to play out of position now that Arthur Masuaku is back to full fitness.
Baptiste will surely get time to prove himself, but that day is some time away in the future and for the shorter term, Moyes possibly has other ideas in his mind.
In other West Ham news, the club want to sign a ‘Breathtaking’ Champions League forward who’s keen on moving to the Premier League
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