West Brom’s manager Carlos Corberan has made some baffling comments regarding loanee Callum Marshall.

West Ham’s current U21s squad is full of players who genuinely could go on to play at the very top. The likes of Divin Mubama, Ollie Scarles and Freddie Potts are all brilliant youngsters with bags of potential, but potentially the player who has shown the most promise is Callum Marshall.

The striker has already made his senior debut for Northern Ireland and was running away with the Premier League 2’s golden boot race before he left on loan for West Brom.

Unfortunately though, he is yet to get a real opportunity for the Baggies and has only played 55 minutes since signing in January. This has rightfully left many West Ham fans furious as it feels like a complete waste of a loan. Sadly, it does not look like things will get much better for the 19 year old and West Brom manager Carlos Corberan has suggested that he has no intention of playing him.

“It’s a pity because he’s a player with a lot of good skills and he’s in a position where there is still a lot of growth,” he stated. “He is in a growing process but he isn’t going to be just ready with game minutes. It’s part of this.”

“We have players who went on loan to places where we wanted them to play, and they didn’t, Reece Hall (to non-league Hereford), we sent him on loan and he has come back because he didn’t play, but part of his development is to have the experience where you’re not playing. It helps you to mature, and helps you to grow. You don’t grow only when you play, you grow when you adapt your resources to the demands.”

It is an absolutely bizarre thing to say and it all but confirms that things will not change. Surely though West Ham would have known that he would barely feature for the Championship side and, therefore, would have been better off going on loan to a team slightly lower down in the rankings. 

Realistically, the only way Marshall gets more minutes is through an injury crisis. While he does get experience of training with a first team, he could have easily been an important player for a team in the bottom half of the Championship. Who knows though, all it takes is him to score in a substitute appearance and then things could quickly snowball from there.