The international break in September is like a ‘pause’ button being pressed on the [Premier League](https://www.claretandhugh.info/west-hams-aguerd-subject-of-surprising-premier-league-interest/) campaign, just as it is getting interesting. Three games in after preseason, just when players are starting to gel, half the squad disappears for ten days into different regimes of playing, coaching and even different climates.
No less than three breaks are scheduled in this Premier League season so the supporters, managers, players and coaching staff are in for a disjoined ten months.
The players who remain behind get to work with and will of course seek to impress their coaching team without some of the more stellar squad players to distract. Certainly the case at West Ham United with a whole host of ex academy graduates seeking to stake their claim in Potter’s starting XI. Having just worked up to match fitness, the club staged a behind closed doors friendly against Watford to keep working on Potter’s methods and to keep the remainder of the squad match-fit.
From _exWHUEmployee_ comes news of the result – a 1-1 draw- but also news that the impressive pre-season talents of **Preston Fearon** were again to the fore as the 18 year old played and equalised for Potters’ makeshift Hammers side. It has been hard enough for Freddie Potts to get a look in after a successful summer tour in the USA, so for Fearon this was very much a case of trying to remind the manager what he has sitting on the bench.
Alongside the midfield addition of Mateus Fernandes and the more renown talents of George Earthy – who decided against a loan move away this season and has chosen to stay and fight for his place in the squad, young Preston has his work cut out to make headway in the squad despite his obvious talent and has hitherto been limited to turning out for the u21’s.
West Ham’s midfield does look to be more hotly contested than last year: If Guido Rodriguez reads the writing on the wall and decides to accept one of the Saudi offers which might yet take him away from West Ham this September, opportunities for George Earthy, Freddie Potts and Preston Fearon might yet materialise.
Fearon, for his part, has used this international break to drop his reminder to the Manager in the best way possible. At just 18 his time will surely come.