Securing West Ham’s long term future is a balancing act between forking out millions for new players and trying to cherry-pick the ‘creme de la creme’ of academy talent: Recently several promising youngsters have been allowed to leave the club and pursue careers elsewhere.
As we wrote this morning, the recent departures of Gideon Kodua and Emeka Adiele highlights the balancing act required.
West Ham cannot take them all and so try to focus on keeping the most promising of the crop of talented youngsters.
Josh Ajala’s two goals in stoppage time sealed a remarkable u21’s triumph
It seems that last night’s hero from the u21’s semi final against Tamworth fits into that ‘most promising’ category: A source inside West Ham has revealed that, instead of allowing the soon to be out of contract Josh Ajala to leave, West Ham have taken steps to sign him on a long term basis.
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According to a top insider at the club, referring to Ajala:
“He’s verbally accepted a deal from us, let’s see what the next week brings”
Which will be welcome news indeed if the youngster puts pen to paper. You can check out his two injury-time goals last night below:
Down to ten men at Tamworth, Ajala comes up with two HUGE stoppage time goals to send our young Hammers into the National League Cup final 🤯 pic.twitter.com/ECEbeJPVlt
— West Ham United (@WestHam) February 17, 2026
Speaking to the whufc.com web site, Ajala said:
“The feeling of celebrating the winner, you can’t really describe it. The togetherness, you can see it, during the game and in the celebrations. It’s just amazing to have that feeling!”
Let’s hope ‘that feeling’ is enough to see the young striker put pen to paper and confirm his future as a West Ham player.