West Ham United manager David Moyes has spoken about the five-month absence of academy centre-back Jamal Baptiste.
The highly-rated 19-year-old has previously made two first-team appearances for the Hammers and was a regular in Premier League 2 last season, having made the first-team bench back in August for their Europa Conference League play-off first leg win over Danish side Viborg.
After featuring in the opening weeks of the under-21s’ season, Baptiste then did not play a match for five months at any level until starting in last Friday’s 2-1 defeat to Monaco for the under-21s in the Premier League International Cup.
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Baptiste is a player Moyes has previously rated highly, having given him two appearances at first-team level in 2021, making his senior debut off the bench against Doncaster Rovers in the FA Cup before making his full debut in the Europa League against Dinamo Zagreb.
However, speaking on Baptsite’s five-month playing absence, Moyes has described it as the defender having ‘real problems’ and at times, he has not helped the situation himself.
"He's had real problems. Problems I won't discuss here,” Moyes told football.london. “But real problems.
“Look, he's someone we really like as a boy, like as a player. He's had difficult times and he's not helped himself, I've got to say, partly as well.
"But it's not quite as smooth as I would like it to have been. We had really big hopes for him a couple of years ago but he's had difficulties to be honest.”
Despite starting against Monaco, Baptiste was left out of the West Ham squad to face Fulham in Premier League 2 on Friday night.
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