West Ham have confirmed academy graduate George Earthy is conscious and will be sent for hospital assessment after he was stretchered off against Fulham.
Earthy was sent on for his Premier League debut late in the 2-0 defeat, but within minutes went down hurt during a worrying incident.
The 19-year-old was involved in a collision with teammate Edson Alvarez and then appeared to be knocked out cold after hitting his head on landing, with players from both teams immediately signalling for medical assistance.
He was treated on the pitch for almost ten minutes and eventually stretchered off while receiving oxygen, before leaving the London Stadium in an ambulance.
“West Ham United can confirm George Earthy will undergo an assessment in a London hospital this evening following the incident which saw him stretchered off during today’s Premier League fixture against Fulham,” read a club statement.
“It is a head knock,” Hammers boss David Moyes confirmed. “He is awake and has gone to hospital, we think he is okay at the moment. We all thought he had been knocked out but I don't know any more.”
Earthy had made his first-team debut as a substitute in last month’s Europa League victory over Freiburg and was part of the West Ham side that won last season’s FA Youth Cup.
“I am really disappointed for George,” Moyes added. He has been doing really well in training, done really well for the 21s. He started well with the ball, had some really nice touches. “He is a terrific footballer, a great little technician. Really if we'd had the right moments we'd bring him on sooner. We were going to bring him on earlier today. He never let himself down in the period he was on.”
The Hammers had chance to go sixth by beating Fulham but Andreas Pereira’s double earned Marco Silva’s side all three points and Moyes must now lift his team for Thursday’s visit of Bayer Leverkusen, where they must overturn a 2-0 deficit to reach the Europa League semi-final.
“I am gutted,” Moyes said. “Today was a great chance to go sixth with five games to go, what a great position to be in. We gave the ball away in the midfield, gave it away and it opened us up. We were punished.
“We started the game well, for the first 20 minutes I thought we played well. We should have been one or two goals up before they scored. We got caught out with a long ball, didn't deal with it well.
“We had a couple of opportunities to score ourselves which would have changed the dynamic of the game a little bit. We dominated the possession which is not always the way. We got done on the counter today, we didn't seal it up well enough.”
