It is not exactly uncommon for young, London-based players to move from club to club at youth level before settling down, be it at West Ham United or Chelsea, Arsenal, Crystal Palace or Tottenham Hotspur.
Frank Lampard trained with Arsenal and Tottenham as a kid, for example, before opting to follow in his legendary father’s Upton Park footsteps.
Declan Rice became the Gunners’ £105 million record signing years after swapping Chelsea for West Ham United at academy level. Teenage forward Elisha Sowunmi crossed the capital to join Spurs last week, bringing an end to ten years in the Hammers’ youth system.
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Of the current crop, Preston Fearon and Josh Ajala followed in Rice’s footsteps from West London to the East. Under-18 forward Chukwuemeka Obi and Luis Brown, a defender relatively new to the Under-21 set-up, joined from Arsenal in 2024.
Speaking to the official West Ham website this week, meanwhile, Tomas Jonyla reflects on the journey which started out at Crystal Palace and now sees him blossom behind the scenes at Chadwell Heath.
West Ham United snapped up Tomas Jonyla after he was released by Crystal Palace
Jonyla, a left-sided central defender or left-back, is one of the rising stars of the club’s current Under-18 side.
Jonyla provided his first West Ham assist of 2025/26 during last week’s 5-2 crushing of Southampton. He also scored from the spot as Luke Smith’s side edged Aston Villa in a tense penalty shoot-out on Tuesday.
The prolific Josh Ajala fired West Ham to Premier League Cup glory against Reading in 2025. The Hammers’ U18s are now only 180 minutes away from defending their crown. If they do, expect their Lithuania youth star to make a few key contributions along the way.
“I signed for West Ham after a game with the ‘Emerging Hammers’,” says Jonyla, who benefitted from a programme set up in 2022 to offer a route into the academy for teenage talents.
“When I got released from Palace, someone at West Ham who I knew referred me to [Head of Schoolboy Recruitment] Shane [O’Gorman], and he put me into an ‘Emerging Hammers game to see if I could prove myself on trial.
“I remember the conversation prior because I’d just got released, like, a week before! [West Ham] said, ‘We don’t want to chuck you into the deep end straight away just in case you don’t get in and it gets you down’.
“But I’d already come to terms with my release from Palace as I knew it was coming, so I thought it was as good a time as any to throw myself into the trial.
“A day after the Emerging Hammers game, they sent an email that I’m officially on trial and I signed officially a week before my birthday!”
Jonyla impresses as Emeka Adiele leaves the Hammers for the Eredivisie
Jonyla signed a scholarship at West Ham last summer, alongside the likes of Joel Kerr, Joe Scanlon and the aforementioned Chuk Obi.
“I got offered my scholarship the summer of my Under-16s season,” adds the 17-year-old, who has played once so far for the Hammers at Under-21 level. “I got a message after training saying the staff wanted to discuss my pathway at the club or something like that.
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“It sounded similar to how the conversation of my release at Palace was teed up, so I made sure I didn’t get my hopes up. They asked me, ‘What do you think this meeting is about?’. I didn’t know what to say!
“I went in there and they told me that I would be offered a scholarship, so I was obviously buzzing with the news!”
Jonyla is establishing himself as a bit of a set-piece specialist in the academy. His deliveries caused havoc against both Southampton and Aston Villa. Smith has taken to using him as a left-back at times, therefore making the most of Jonyla’s quality delivery from wide areas.
Only a few days ago, however, fellow left-sider Emeka Adiele left West Ham for FC Utrecht despite providing 15 goal contributions in 20 Under-21 matches. With El Hadji Malick Diouf, Ollie Scarles and Ezra Mayers all aged between 21 and 18, the future looks very bright for the Hammers in terms of left-backs.
On the other hand, competition for places is likely to be extremely intense if – or when – Jonyla goes to the next level.
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