Goalscoring is hardly a West Ham speciality this season. The Hammers have struggled under two different head coaches to put the ball in the net, with well-documented statistics showing the club has a pretty dire gaols per game record. Leading scorers at the stage in the season are Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek both with seven goals.
So the headline makes quite a a startling statistic. The leading young striker, in any division this season, be it Premier League, Championship, League 1 or 2 has -nine. At he is a West Ham player who’ll be back at the end of his loan in the summer. This was underlined just this morning by social media account ‘claretandbluebubble‘ for which I’m grateful. A promising future then, awaits Callum Marshall; nobody wants to get too carried away at this stage as Marshall is in third-tier Huddersfield but at twenty years old, to be the top goalscorer under 21 in English football is quite an achievement.
Marshall himself has told of his desire to get selected by Graham Potter next season. “”I just want to use this loan spell to push on for when I go back to West Ham this summer.” He said earlier in March, brimming with ambition to wear the shirt again. And from afar, he’s seen the ‘Scarles effect’ :
“There are opportunities for young players at the club now. West Ham have a good record at bringing youngsters through. When I go back, hopefully I can make more appearances.“
Marshall having outscored any other youngster in the football league must hope his chance will come at London Stadium. There will certainly be vacancies this summer with Ings and probably Antonio’s contracts finishing, and Evan Ferguson’s loan ending.
A season in the Championship? Or straight up to the main West Ham squad. An impressive pre-season could see Marshall elevated like Scarles and Orford – and then West Ham’s very own Northern Ireland version of Michael Owen might be just waiting for his chance to grab the headlines.
