West Ham United starlet Harrison Ashby waxes lyrical over Emmanuel Longelo
Emmanuel Longelo is enjoying his time on loan at Birmingham City and his West Ham teammate Harrison Ashby loved what he did on Friday (28 October).
The 21-year-old full-back scored a brilliant long-range strike to double the Blues’ lead against the high-flying Queens Park Rangers in a pulsating first half of Championship football.
It was Longelo’s first senior goal for Birmingham having joined them for the season on loan from the London Stadium in the summer transfer window.
“What a guy Manny Longelo. Proud of you my son,” Ashby said via his personal Twitter account, resharing a video of the full-backs goal from Sky Sports.
“Big win last night happy to have scored my 1st professional goal, thanks for your support bluenoses. Thank you, God,” was Longelo’s response to the game on Saturday morning (29 October) via his Twitter account.
Needs a chance
Barring the odd dead-rubber cup or European game, Longelo has not been given a single opportunity to prove himself at West Ham which has seen him forced into loan moves elsewhere.
His impressive start to the season at St Andrew’s should have caught the eye of manager David Moyes at the very least and reminded him that there are plenty of talented players he can call upon at Rush Green already.
Should injuries pile up as they have done previously, the Scot may want someone like Longelo around to be able to fill in at either left-back or right-back when required.
Ben Johnson does that at the moment but he is arguably too good for that now and should command a place in the side on merit rather than being an ambulance chaser.
Ashby is effectively in competition with Longelo as full-backs but the fact that he still bigs up his defacto rival says an awful lot about the character he is.