West Ham Weekly Loan Watch

You know what it is, Hammers. That’s right, Brace the Hammer’s official Weekly Loan Watch is back for another round. How long will it go? Probably until the end of the season and then it’ll be forgotten like all of the other vacuous nonsense that occupies time and space. Actually probably not because we really enjoy doing this.

Anyway, if you still don’t know who these players are, you are always free to check the West Ham Loanee Index where we identify, as well as give you a bit of a backstory on, each of West Ham’s young ones that are out on loan.

All in all, though, not much going on for our loanees this week as only four out of twelve got any playing time. Kyle Knoyle and Josh Pask are back with West Ham’s U23 squad and are looking to win the PL2 League Title for the second year in a row, but they’re sitting in fifth place with 28 points, which is fourteen points behind league-leaders Swansea City.

Joshua Cullen — Bradford City (League One)

Bantams fans are going to be very upset when Josh Cullen inevitably leaves. The kid has become “a cult hero” over at Bradford City, and the fans are absolutely in love with him. This is a good sign for West Ham, because these fans see that the Hammers have certainly got a special player on their books.

Josh Cullen played the full 90 minutes in both of BCAFC’s matches on Saturday the 25th and Tuesday the 28th to the tune of one 2-1 win and one 2-2 draw respectively.

While it’s hard to dig up specific stats for players, and while we don’t really know if stats matter all that much in football, what we do know is that Joshua Cullen makes an incredible impact every time he’s on the field, winning MOTM more often than not.

This nifty graphic does give us a pretty good idea of Cullen’s “stats.”

What we’ve gathered so far, though, is that if Josh Cullen could shoot the ball there’s no way he’d be playing down in League One.

Bradford City are sitting in fifth place in the League One table, which is comfortable position for a playoff spot, but the Bantams have really got to retain the form they’ve had these last couple of weeks if they want to continue to vie for that promotion to the Championship next season. If that were to happen it’s entirely possible that we could see Cullen staying with the Bantams for another season to see how he fares in the Championship against much tougher competition. Here’s hoping all goes well for our man!

Toni Martinez — Oxford United (League One)

Toni Martinez played the full 90 minutes in Oxford United’s 4-0 drubbing of Chesterfield at home, but once again failed to net a goal. This doesn’t mean that the young Spaniard wasn’t putting in the work, though, as he played the whole match. We know that the lad has an eye for goal as he scored in both of Oxford’s FA Cup appearances before their exit, but our man still has yet to score in a League One match. We think it’s just a matter of time. Oxford sit at 9th in the league table with 49 points, and it doesn’t seem they have much of a shot at promotion as they’re 19 points behind league-leading Sheffield United.

Sam Howes — Hampton & Richmond (National League South)

Sam Howes, AKA H&R Blocker (yeah, I won’t let this joke die until Sam is back with the Hammers), had another subpar match for the Beavers. Howes has only had one clean sheet with the NL South outfit, but he’s only started seven games so far so there’s plenty of time for that. The young England international is still settling in, and even if his squad lost 2-0 at home and dropped three points to the poor side that is Weston-Super-Mare, Hampton & Richmond still sits at 7th in the league table. While the Beavers are eight points out of a playoff spot it’s plenty doable and they could see themselves promoted to the National League. Just because Howes is the goalie doesn’t mean he alone takes the blame for the recent losses from Hampton & Richmond. Hopefully, though, our man Sam starts doing better and also gets some more support from his defenders.

Jaanai Gordon — Newport County (League Two)

It seemed our man Jaanai would have played the full match, but he got a double yellow and was sent off in the 68’. Unfortunately Gordon’s goal-scoring ability wasn’t put on display like we know it can be before that happened and Newport County ultimately dropped the match 2-1 away from home. So that’s fun.

DID NOT PLAY (DNP):

• Enner Valencia
• Reece Burke
• Martin Samuelsen
• Reece Oxford
• Alex Pike
• George Dobson
• Marcus Browne
• Sam Ford

Back from loan:

• Kyle Knoyle
• Josh Pask

No longer with the club:

• Luka Belic
• Stephen Hendrie