West Ham United suffer yet another transfer blow as Arsenal poach Bowen Phillips
West Ham have seen yet another of their youngsters depart for a Premier League rival as Bowen Phillips has put pen to paper with Arsenal.
The teenager, a product of the Ryan FC Soccer School, confirmed the news on his personal Instagram account on Thursday (26 October).
Phillips, who uploaded an image of himself alongside Arsenal academy manager Per Mertesacker, is expected to link up with the Gunners’ Under-15s side.
“Happy to be offered a contract with my boyhood club arsenal,” he said.
“Thank you to all the staff at West Ham who have helped me to become the player I am now and can’t wait to see them one day in the future.”
While not an awful lot is known about Phillips himself, he is the latest in a long list of academy players to jump ship before he has developed.
Youngsters moving between academies is nothing new, but West Ham cannot afford to continue seeing potential stars of the future move on.
Indeed, United themselves profited when poaching Declan Rice a decade ago when he departed Chelsea.
As Rice’s move to Arsenal in the summer goes to show, there is a lot of money at stake with untapped gems – £100million-plus in this instance.
Earlier this month, Joel Vida-Philbert headed to Chelsea, while Divine Mukasa and Amara Nallo recently joined Manchester City and Liverpool respectively.
That means Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool – among others – have swooped for players in West Ham’s academy in recent months.
The fact elite teams like the look of what they see suggest these youngsters have hugely promising futures ahead of them.
In fact, Nallo has already been fast-tracked to Liverpool’s Under-21s side, despite being just 16 years of age.
For all we know, Phillips may not make the grade at Arsenal and then fall by the wayside. But every time a player of promise heads to a rival, it leaves the Hammers open to future pain.
One way or another, the club needs to stem the tide and put an end to these departures.
In other West Ham news, the Hammers are now frustrated with a £10m player as a behind-the-scenes revelation has emerged from the London Stadium.