Former West Ham United striker Brown hits out at club’s training methods

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West Ham academy graduate Jordan Brown failed to break into the first team at the east London club before leaving to join Hannover in 2016.

He is not the first and won’t be the last promising English talent to come up short in his bid to force himself into a Premier League first-team squad and he made his move to Germany before Jadon Sancho made it fashionable.

He has been speaking to Sky Sports about his experiences in the Bundesliga and how it compares with his time at West Ham; and the contrast between the coaching standards is – in his opinion – stark.

Brown said: “There are training sessions without the ball where they explain that if the ball goes here then you are expected to go there. In England, I never did that. It’s almost random.

“When I was playing up front for West Ham, I was basically just pressing the person nearest to me. It was only when I went to Germany that I realised that maybe wasn’t the cleverest idea. You are wasting energy if you are not pressing as a team. That is what they do.”

That’s a fairly damning assessment on the coaching methods at West Ham – a club that historically prided itself on its ability to develop young players.

Brown’s points hint at a deeper problem within English football, but for Hammers fans in particular, his comments must be a worry when they’ve got a seemingly promising crop coming through but in need of guidance if they are to follow Declan Rice into the first team.