Nuno Espirito Santo clearly did not see Rayan Oyebade as someone ready to contribute to West Ham United’s promotion ambitions. The same cannot be said, though, of Ezra Mayers.
While Josh Ajala, Airidas Golambeckis and Finlay Herrick were pictured at Rush Green during this week’s 3-2 friendly win over Colchester, a defender capped by both England and Greece at youth level was putting pen to paper on a temporary contract with Southend.
According to Kevin Keen, who works as West Ham United’s Loans Manager these days, the decision to send Rayan Oyebade to Roots Hall was partly due to the fact that Nuno Espirito Santo does not see a place for him in his first-team squad.
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Well, not yet anyway.
The recent emergence of Ezra Mayers probably has a lot to do with that.
Ezra Mayers set for West Ham United breakout as Rayan Oyebade heads out on loan
While Mayers would establish himself as a West Ham senior – he played ten times in total after making his debut in December – his fellow 19-year-old makes the 37-mile journey to Southend in pursuit of a breakthrough of his own.
“It’s really important for Rayan,” Keen tells Echo News. “He played all season in the under-21s last year, really successfully.
“We got to the final of the National League Cup final where we lost to Boreham Wood and he played in all the rounds there. He played in the Vertu Trophy too so he’s had that experience which has been beneficial.
“He’s not quite in the manager’s thoughts at the moment, so instead we wanted him to go and get some serious football under his belt.”
West Ham currently have two left-footed teenage centre-backs going head-to-head.
With Max Kilman and Konstantinos Mavropanos still in the building – the Hammers reportedly have an agreement to bring back Axel Disasi for a fee of £25 million, too – there is realistically only room for one of Mayers and Oyebade in Nuno’s defensive roster right now.
They are also expected to sign at least one more centre-back, even if the Hammers turned their backs on Dael Fry prior to his move from Middlesbrough to Birmingham.
There is, perhaps, a future at West Ham for Oyebade. Freddie Potts, Callum Marshall and the aforementioned Herrick all made first-team debuts last season after impressive loan spells at Portsmouth, Huddersfield Town, and Boreham Wood.
Unfortunately for Oyebade, though, Nuno’s decision to promote Mayers while green-lighting a loan spell in the National League for his fellow left-footer shows that there is clearly a pecking order at play here. Two 19-year-old lefties challenging for one spot in the senior squad, and Mayers is Nuno’s favourite of the two.
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Oyebade will hone his talents under Kieron Dyer at Southend
“Rayan was in my youth team three years ago,” adds Keen, who hopes to see Oyebade thrive under ex-West Ham midfielder turned Southend manager Kieron Dyer. “I worked with him then and he’s a great athlete and a good footballer.
“We feel like this is the ideal move for him for the next part of his career. It’s important he gets experience and hopefully he’ll have a successful season with Southend.
“He’s been with us five years and he’s very highly thought of. He’s a left-sided centre-back or left-back who came in quite late when he was 14 or 15 years old. I think he’s got a lot of the modern attributes which are looked for in football at the moment.
“He’s extremely athletic, quick and strong.”
Unfortunately for Oyebade, those are three attributes that could also be used to describe the talents of Ezra Mayers.
“If you look at the careers that they’ve had, it’s exciting to be named in that same bracket,” Mayers said after following in the footsteps of Jack Collison, James Tomkins and Declan Rice while claiming the 2026 Young Hammer of the Year award.
“I’m definitely really grateful to have won this award and have been given opportunities with the first team this season. That said, as with most things as a young player, you need to keep working hard as there’s still a long way to go.”
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