It is always worth pointing out, especially after a deluge of criticism came the way of young Ollie Scarles a few days ago, that West Ham United captain Jarrod Bowen was playing Championship football with Hull City at the same age.
The skipper was 23 when he left Humberside for East London in a deal worth £20 million back in January 2020.
This means he was nearly a half-decade older than Ollie Scarles was when the left-back claimed West Ham United’s Young Player of the Year award in May.
Freddie Potts has followed in Scarles’ footsteps by establishing himself as a first-team regular since then, while Mohamadou Kante and Ezra Mayers continued their emergence into the senior squad with cameo appearances in Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Brighton and Hove Albion.
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What a response from the youngster
Nuno Espirito Santo insists that chances will keep coming for the club’s next generation as well.
George Earthy earned his first Premier League appearance in a year-and-a-half against Fulham. Callum Marshall made his top-flight debut in October while Airidas Golambeckis has caught Nuno’s eye too in recent months.
Now, it would be a stretch to call Jarrod Bowen a late-bloomer perhaps. But given that it took him until around his mid-20s to really become an established first division performer, Bowen is willing to give a lot of leeway to the baby-faced teammates making strides onto the Premier League stage while barely out of – and still in, in Mayers’ case – their teenage years.
Jarrod Bowen pays tribute to West Ham United kids Freddie Potts and Ollie Scarles
Bowen saw both Potts and Scarles bounce back from difficult spells over the festive schedule.
Potts was left ‘devastated’ at the Etihad when he lost possession in the build-up to Manchester City’s third in a 3-0 win. Scarles left the London Stadium pitch in tears, meanwhile, after his miss-kick led to Raul Jimenez’s 85th minute winner for Fulham.
Scarles ‘shut his haters up’ when Brighton came to town, though, on a night when Potts held his own against the criminally-underrated Yasin Ayari and the vastly-experienced James Milner.
“The only thing that we can do is help them and support [the young players],” Bowen told reporters at full-time, pointing out that Scarles and Potts are both younger than he was when he joined West Ham from second-tier Hull.
“These players nowadays have way more confidence and way more ability than I ever did at that age! They are here on merit. They’re not here just to make up the numbers. They’re here because they deserve it.
“Every time they get their opportunity, it’s about us helping them, but ultimately they just go out and do what they do in training and what they’ve done for their younger sides. They make the transition look easy.
“We’ve got Ollie Scarles, Pottsy, that have come through the academy and they’re first-team regulars now. So, it’s a credit to them as people and how they want to work. To see more people get their opportunities tonight [Mayers and Kante] and see them on the pitch at the end was nice to see.”
Still only 18, Ezra Mayers impressed the West Ham supporters with a cameo of real composure and maturity away to Man City. A left-footer who can play at centre-half or at left-back, Mayers appears to have climbed over Igor Julio in Nuno’s pecking order.
Mohamadou Kante is the ‘shining beacon’ of West Ham’s current Under-21 crop, meanwhile, Loans and Pathways Manager Carlton Cole claimed on the other side of Christmas.
As bad as 2025 has been – an annus horribillis indeed – the academy again provides reason for optimism.
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Bowen relieved to right the wrongs of Fulham against Brighton
Jarrod Bowen apologised to the Hammers fans after missing a couple of presentable chances in that devastating late defeat by Fulham on December 27th.
No one was more relieved than he, then, when the captain raced in behind onto a Lucas Paqueta through ball and finished coolly under an advancing Bart Verbruggen with just ten minutes on the clock against Brighton.
“In the last game, I missed a chance that kept me up for a couple of days,” Bowen admits. “Because I think in the situation of that game, we were 0-0 and that would have made it 1-0. I kind of put a lot of blame on myself because I’m quite an honest person and quite hard on myself.
“So tonight, I wanted to score even more than what I wanted to any other time, and I managed to do that. Of course, it’s not about me, but I know that my goals will help the team in the situation that we’re in.
“We’re only halfway through the season. Obviously, it’s not been anywhere near where we want to be, but we just need to make the second half better than the first. Like I say to the players, it’s easy to make excuses, easy to point fingers, but there has to be a time where there’s a realisation that you look in the mirror individually and demand more from yourself.
“Ultimately, the position that we’re in. If the Premier League ended now, we’d be down in the Championship and no one wants that.
“So, ultimately, we have to look at ourselves. We have to step up. We have to keep demanding every single day. When we go out onto the pitch, we’ve got to do everything we can to get three points. As simple as it is.
“Yes, the season’s not done, but we also want to be out of this situation come February or March. We need to improve.
“We can’t expect to be given it. We can’t expect it to be easy. Nothing’s ever easy in this league. We go to Wolves who, I don’t know where they’re going to finish, but they haven’t won this season. So, people expect us to win. That’s a pressure that we have to take and we have to deal with that.
“We know it’s not going to be as easy as just going there and winning. We’re going to have to earn the right to play. We’re going to have to earn the right to get three points. But the most important thing now is rest up, recover, and be ready to go at it.
“There’s no hiding place. It’s time now.”
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