West Ham's greatest ever academy XI | OneFootball

Perhaps not so much in recent years, but West Ham were once very well known for their ability to constantly produce brilliant young talents from their youth academy. Many stars that went on to represent England have come through the ranks in East London before moving on to different clubs in the Premier League for the most part.

Making an XI of the best players to have come through the West Ham academy is very difficult as some positions are limited in options as will be seen soon, while other positions are more than stacked and as a result, some very talented players miss out.

With that in mind, we have created the best XI of West Ham academy players in history in our minds, with an unconventional 4-4-2 diamond formation being used to get the best out of each player.

There are not a lot of options when it comes to the goalkeeper position in this team, but the decision has been made to get Martin in as his Premier League debut for the club came 16 years after his senior career kicked off. The current Southend United shot-stopper spent time in three different academies - Tottenham, West Ham and Wimbledon. It was with the latter that he got his first taste of first-team football in 2003 before moving on to MK Dons and even Liverpool.

Martin never made a big impression at Anfield as he spent almost the entirety of his contract out on loan with lower league sides. It was back at MK Dons that he played the majority of his game time between 2010 and 2017. He returned to West Ham in 2019 as a third-choice option and made his debut for the club in a 1-0 win at Stamford Bridge before going on to play four more times in the top flight.

After spending nine years in the Iron's academy, the right-back got his breakthrough into first-team action during the 2002/03 campaign shortly after a four-month loan at Millwall. That loan was initially extended before being cut short by his parent club where he began to pick up more senior minutes. Unfortunately, Johnson was unable to prevent the Hammers from suffering relegation in the summer of 2003.

The English full-back went on to sign for local rivals, Chelsea, where he would go on to be a back-up option for the most part. He got his hands on a Premier League winners medal in 2004/05 as he worked under the revolutionary Jose Mourinho. The rest of his career was very respectable as Johnson went on to be a first choice option for Portsmouth, Liverpool and Stoke City before hanging up his boots in 2018.

Ferdinand is best-known for his long spell with Manchester United at the very top of the sport, with six Premier League titles and a Champions League trophy to his name. But, the journey for the English defender started all the way back in 1992 when he joined the West Ham academy. The first five years of his senior career saw the Englishman play 150 times for the Hammers with a loan spell at Bournemouth thrown in for extra experience.

With his impressive showings in East London, Ferdinand was snapped up by Leeds United for a British record transfer fee at the time which made him the most expensive defender on the planet. Those records were then achieved again in 2002 by himself as Manchester United swooped to bring in the man that had taken over as Leeds captain at a young age after guiding the Yorkshire outfit to a Champions League semi-final. His career at Old Trafford speaks for itself with the previously named honours being the highlights.

Moore will forever go down in history in the English game as the only man to have captained the nation to a World Cup trophy in 1966. Not only were his defensive performances incredible and rock solid, his leadership qualities shone through as he led a team filled with top class players to glory.

The centre-back spent his best years with West Ham after coming through the youth ranks and debuting for the first-team in 1958. Such were his massive performances for club and country, Moore even got ever so close to winning a Ballon d'Or award in 1970 as he finished second best behind Gerd Muller.

He is the only man in the XI that never actually made a competitive appearance for the Irons, Richardson left the West Ham academy in order to join Manchester United, which is where he got his start in senior football. That goes a long way to show that there are a severe lack of options when it comes to left-backs to have been produced by the club's academy.

Richardson went on to have a solid top flight career with his best years being spent at the Stadium of Light with Sunderland, where his most memorable moment came when he almost took the roof off the net against Newcastle in the Tyne-Wear derby.

DM: Declan Rice

Rice is the most recent man to have pulled on the West Ham shirt, with the current England international captaining the team to a Europa Conference League title in the 2022/23 season following a 2-1 final win over Fiorentina. His initial breakthrough into the first-team after performing well within the academy was as a central defender in 2015. Since then however, Rice has grown into a brilliant midfield general that is one of the best in his position in the world.

The 24-year-old made the decision to move on from the club in the summer transfer window after playing 245 times for the Hammers. An eye-watering £105 million fee was the magic number to see Rice join Mikel Arteta's Arsenal side as the Gunners fought off competition from Pep Guardiola and Manchester City. His life at the Emirates has been very strong, and he even scored a late winner against Manchester United.

CM: Michael Carrick

Like Ferdinand, Carrick was a player best known at the end of his career for his time at Old Trafford in which he won five Premier League titles while playing alongside Paul Scholes in the centre of midfield. While the former England international played for the West Ham academy, he was part of an FA Youth Cup winning side in the 1998/99 season.

He got his first few games in the senior set-up the very next season before becoming a regular in the starting line-up in the following four seasons. Carrick spent two years with West Ham's London rivals, Tottenham, before getting the biggest move of his career to Man United in 2006.

Known affectionately as 'Mr West Ham', Noble is the only true one club man to make it into this XI - as we will forgive the two short loan spells he had in 2006 - meaning it would only be right to hand him the captain's armband which is an honour he held for seven years before his retirement from the game in 2022.

Not only was Noble a brilliant leader off the pitch, but he led by example on it also as it was very rare that the English midfielder found himself out-worked in the engine room. The box-to-box midfield player was hard-working and very technically astute on the ball with an incredible penalty record that saw him find the net 40 times out of 45.

As was mentioned earlier, there has been a tactical tweak from the popular 4-3-3 formation to a diamond in midfield due to the number of brilliant central midfield players the Hammers' academy has produced. Lampard is the man tasked with being the more attack minded player as he was always brilliant at arriving into the opposing penalty box at the right time and find a way to get the ball into the net.

Any top level striker would be delighted to end their career with 269 goals - never mind a midfield player - and this is exactly what Lampard did at club level. His vast array of finishing capabilities including free-kicks, penalties, headers and long-range drives, were the key to his success going forward and the Chelsea icon is regarded as one of the finest English midfielders of all time.

ST: Joe Cole

Cole had two different stints in East London with the first being his emergence from the youth set-up into the first-team in 1998. The young attacking midfielder began to make a name for himself as he showcased his brilliant close control and pace going forward. This earned Cole a move to Chelsea where he would win the Premier League three times.

The later years of his career saw the English midfielder struggle with injury issues that ruled him out for many games over the years. Some believe that the talent of the man was not justified throughout his career due to these fitness problems, but Cole still had an impressive career with a return to West Ham in the 2013/14 season enough to cement his place in this side.

ST: Geoff Hurst

The first man to ever score a World Cup final hat-trick, Hurst joins Moore in English history as a massive part of the team that lifted the biggest international trophy in1966. His feat of scoring a treble in the biggest global match wasn't matched until Kylian Mbappe matched the feat in 2022, although his France side were unable to secure victory as the Three Lions did.

Hurst spent 14 years leading the line for the Irons as he found the net 180 times in the league from slightly over 400 games. He spent the final seven years of his career moving around several different club, but his time with his boyhood club is the most notable spell.