Former West Ham United, Southampton and Charlton Athletic manager Alan Pardew certainly subscribes to the theory that ‘if you are good enough, you are old enough’.
Pardew, who also coached the likes of West Brom, Newcastle and Crystal Palace during a lengthy career in the dugout, had a front-row seat in the development of some of the brightest young talent in English football.
He watched Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain become a Southampton sensation long before he was charging into the final third for Arsenal and Liverpool respectively.
Pardew saw Jonjo Shelvey up close at Charlton, while he trained alongside a teenage Scott Parker when both men were at very different ends of their footballing journeys.
The 64-year-old was also the man who handed Mark Noble his break in senior football at West Ham United two decades ago.
After Pardew phased out captain Steve Lomas, he opened the door for a fresh-faced Noble to follow in those footsteps, eventually becoming the armband-wearing midfield marvel at the heart of that claret and blue line-up for years to come.
Alan Pardew mentions West Ham United legend Mark Noble alongside Wayne Rooney and Lamine Yamal
Speaking to talkSPORT and reminiscing about the time he first clapped eyes on a man who now works as West Ham’s sporting director, Pardew mentions Noble alongside the likes of Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney and even Lamine Yamal.
While his emergence onto the senior stage was not quite as headline-grabbing, there was no Ballon D’Or for Noble nor an iconic Premier League introduction like Rooney’s ‘remember the name’ moment against Arsenal in Everton blue, Pardew knew from the first minutes together on the training pitch that a future West Ham icon had what it takes.
“Players do peak at different times. Look at Yamal at Barcelona, he’s already done so, so much because he was that progressive at a young age,” Pardew points out.
“The only people [I could compare to a young Michael Owen], who hit the ground running, are Rooney, Gazza [Paul Gascoigne] to an extent. Young players, they [can be] ready but some great players do sometimes take a little bit longer.
“If you’re good enough… When Mark Noble turned up training at West Ham and we promoted him from the youth team to the first-team, it was evident from training session [number] one at 16 that this kid is going to be close.
“Scotty Parker came and trained with me at Charlton when he was 14, and I thought ‘wow’. So you do get exceptional talents. Oxlade-Chamberlain at Southampton, Jonjo Shelvey…”
The issue these days, Pardew says, is that the pathway is often blocked by very expensive obstacles. He uses the example of Chelsea, who appear to have multiple £30 million-plus players for every single position.
“Look at Chelsea. I think there are clubs where it is going to be very, very difficult to promote young players. But most clubs, if they are good enough, they will get in.”
Freddie Potts and Lewis Orford hope to be West Ham’s next breakout stars
Graham Potter has faced criticism early in this campaign due to a lack of minutes handed out to the club’s current generation of rising stars. Perhaps Potter was wary of throwing them in at the deepest of deep ends, with the Hammers enduring such a miserable start.
Then again, as Pardew says, age should be no obstacle to opportunity for those good enough and mature enough to seize them.
Captain Jarrod Bowen has big expectations for Freddie Potts, the tigerish midfielder with shades of a young Noble. Callum Marshall is also hoping for an opportunity, while Ollie Scarles’ hopes of building on that Young Hammer of the Year award have been impacted by the £19 million signing of El Hadji Malick Diouf.
Lewis Orford trained with Thomas Tuchel’s England team before the 2-0 win over Andorra, the 19-year-old Stevenage loanee clearly making an impression on the Three Lions bosses.
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