Toni Martinez has left West Ham United on loan for the coming season.
When Toni Martinez was scoring a barrel-load of goals for West Ham’s under-23s, it appeared almost inevitable that the young Spaniard would eventually find his way into the first-team fold before establishing himself as a key man at the London Stadium. However, 2018 has not exactly been such a good year for the striker.
David Moyes became the latest manager reluctant to hand him a chance and he headed out on loan to Real Valladolid. Unfortunately, the 21-year-old scored just one league goal, so returned to his parent club with little momentum as Moyes was replaced by Manuel Pellegrini.
But again, Martinez appears to find himself no closer to the West Ham first-team and has now joined Rayo Majadahonda on loan for this season. It is surely a somewhat alarming move regarding Martinez’s future.
Yet another manager has found that Martinez is not ready to be involved with the Hammers first-team, and he has headed out to a team in the Spanish second division. You would imagine that a move to the Championship or to another top flight club elsewhere would make more sense if he was on the periphery of Pellegrini’s thinking.
Having struggled before, it appears fair to say that Martinez cannot afford for another loan spell to go under the radar if he wants to live up to previous expectations regarding his West Ham future.
And the pressure on Martinez’s shoulders has surely increased further now that summer signing Xande Silva has made a sensational start to life with the Hammers.
Silva scored a hat-trick earlier this week as West Ham defeated Tottenham’s under-23s. It is an incredible introduction, and given that he is the same age as Martinez and has been signed by the current management team, he is clearly ahead of Martinez in the pecking order.
And if Silva continues to impress and Martinez struggles in Spain, then it is difficult to imagine that the latter would stand any chance of forcing his way into the West Ham first-team in the coming years.
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