As reported this morning, Ben Johnson has left West Ham United on a free transfer.
I can’t help but feel a little disappointed by this turn of events because, as I’ve stated on numerous occasions, I don’t ever feel the player was given an extended run in his chosen position.
Johnson was a player who had been at West Ham since the age of eight, and there would have been numerous times when he’d have been happy to have extended his West Ham contract. While we can’t know his precise reasoning for him leaving, the lure of first-team football must have been significant.
There were times during the last campaign when West Ham was truly awful in defence, yet despite impressing from the bench, Johnson was never really given the chance to secure a first-team spot.
Johnson was believed to be the second lowest-earning player at West Ham last season, with only Divin Mubama earning less.
I’ll never fully understand why West Ham are seemingly willing to waste large sums of money on the likes of Kalvin Phillips and Danny Ings, yet are unable to pay an amount of money which is not unreasonable to an academy graduate.
It may well be that West Ham secure an excellent replacement for Johnson in the shape of Kyle Walker-Peters and I hope we do. But I still can’t quite shake the belief that the club have allowed a Premier League standard academy player to leave by not dealing with the situation 12 months ago. It seems like the Hammers negotiating team panicked about losing an asset towards the end of last season rather than rewarding a person who’d been at the club for 16 years.
I can only hope that West Ham learn their lessons or we may find ourselves in a similar situation with the likes of George Earthy.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish Ben all the luck in the world in his new career, and I have little doubt that he will enjoy an excellent debut season for his new club from the start.
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