While Freddie Potts has made the step up from a loan spell in the Football League to the Premier League stage look pretty straightforward, not every young player at West Ham United is afforded such an opportunity.
Potts departed Portsmouth to a standing ovation when his fantastic stint at Fratton Park came to an end.
He was certainly not the only one to return to his parent club a more mature, confident, and experienced footballer, not to mention an award winner.
West Ham United’s fan favourite was named Pompey’s Young Player of the Year. A prize George Earthy also claimed at Bristol City, for that matter. Ditto Callum Marshall at Huddersfield Town.
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But while Marshall and Earthy look to emulate Potts and establish themselves in the first team – surely Nuno will be itching to give Earthy a go, in particular – Patrick Kelly is hoping to show that there is another route for young players desperate to prove themselves at senior level.
Kelly had hoped to impress in pre-season under Graham Potter, after helping Doncaster Rovers win the League Two title last season. But when Barnsley came calling, offering the Northern Ireland international the chance to establish himself at one of the more ambitious third-tier outfits, this was an opportunity he was not willing to let pass by.
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West Ham even let Patrick Kelly leave for free, terminating the final 12 months of his contract. And Kelly, who was grateful to the Hammers for helping make his move to Oakwell that little bit more straightforward, is making real strides this season.
“I have got targets in my head,” Kelly told the Barnsley Chronicle, days after sending The Tykes into the third round of the FA Cup with a winner against Peterborough United.
“I want to get to double digits for goals. It’s still early in the season so I just need to keep chipping away. Most importantly the goal is to get the team as high up the table as possible.”
Kelly is 30 per cent of the way to reaching his target of ten goals. The former West Ham prospect got the better of Gideon Kodua a few weeks ago too, netting following another burst into the box during a 5-0 hammering of Luton Town.
Kodua, on loan at Kenilworth Road from the London giants, scored in his own net that day too.
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“It’s going well for me at the minute,” adds Kelly, who joined the Hammers from Coleraine in 2022 and made his senior Northern Ireland debut against Luxembourg last month. “I feel really confident in the attacking midfield role and I am arriving in the box a lot.
“In the last month, there have been a lot of chances to score. Hopefully I can add more goals because it’s something I want to improve. I need to keep making those runs because we have the quality and I know the pass will come.
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“I thought I would have been little bit deeper this season but I am seeing a different side to my game. I am working with the staff trying to improve every day.
“Hopefully I keep doing what I am doing here then I have a chance of being in that [Northern Ireland] squad. It was unbelievable to make my debut. My family were all there. It was special because I’ve been working towards it my whole career.
“It will be a tough game against Italy [in the World Cup play-off] but there is no reason we can’t go through in a one-off game. We have a really good young team.”
Callum Marshall likened to Harry Kane after Hammers bow
Kelly joined the aforementioned Marshall for the first time in the Northern Ireland roster for the first time in November.
Nuno handed the ex-West Brom loanee a Premier League bow in the 2-0 defeat by Arsenal, though opportunities have been few and far between since then despite Niclas Fullkrug’s injury issues.
Kevin Keen, West Ham’s lead professional development phase coach, believes there are shades of Harry Kane in Marshall, such is the way he tends to locate the corners of the net with power and precision.
“There’s a poacher instinct to him,” Keen told The Standard. “His goal in the Youth Cup final [when West Ham battered Arsenal 5-1 in 2023] sums it up. From probably about three or four yards, he’s got between bodies and volleyed it in.
“He’s also got that ability to score from near the edge of the box, a little bit like Harry Kane hits those low shots into far corners.”
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