West Ham United co-owner David Gold has moved to clarify controversial comments he made about young players.
West Ham co-owner Gold infuriated fans with his comments about the prospects of young players at the club and the wider Premier League.
Gold was unapologetic as he took to Twitter to insist it is hard for teenagers to break through in the modern game ahead of seasoned international players.
Known as the Academy of Football, a club which prides itself on cultivating and promoting young talent into the first team, Gold’s words went down like a lead balloon with Hammers fans in particular.
After receiving widespread criticism from football fans in general, Gold then doubled down on his comments in the summer leading to calls from some sections of the West Ham faithful for the board to sell the club.
A few months have passed since but with Slaven Bilic’s team of “seasoned internationals” struggling down in 15th place in the Premier League, the same questions over the club’s failure to promote their crop of promising young players remains.
When one of them, Toni Martinez, hit a hat-trick in a 4-2 win over Manchester United to move the Hammers development side up to third in Premier League 2 Gold was full of praise for the young Spaniard on Twitter.
And it wasn’t long until a supporter put it to Gold that he had previously said young players ‘won’t get a game’.
But Gold took exception to that and moved to clarify what he meant by his previous statements.
“I actually said It’s very difficult for a teenager to get a chance ahead of seasoned internationals,” Gold said on Twitter.
“I believe (there is ) only three in whole Premier League.”
Supporters have been disappointed to see promising young player Declan Rice dropped from the first team picture since he made a mistake in the club’s 3-0 defeat at Newcastle.
It was a similar story for another emerging talent Reece Oxford who burst onto the scene with a man of the match performance against Arsenal in Bilic’s first game but has been rarely seen in the two years since.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
