Defender’s West Ham exit has been confirmed; he’s been at the club for more than a decade

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It’s not been the greatest season by West Ham’s recent standards, with Premier League salvation only recently being confirmed.

David Moyes has at least had the comfort of a magnificent Europa Conference League campaign to fall back on, with the Hammers in the final and looking to win their first European silverware in 58 years.

Whether a win in that competition will be enough to keep him in the manager’s job will only be found out at the conclusion, so in the meantime the expectation will be that the club will continue as normal and will pursue any targets that Moyes has targeted.

One player that unfortunately won’t be part of any plans with Moyes or otherwise is Jamal Baptiste.

According to The Athletic (subscription required), the 19-year-old, who has been with the club since 2011, will leave at the end of the 2022/23 campaign when his contract runs out.

Injuries haven’t been kind to a player who was seemingly destined for the very top.

The report details how Baptiste has had to deal with Guillain-Barre syndrome, which apparently affects the nervous system and has clearly affected just how much the player has been able to get on the pitch.

It’s difficult to see where his career goes from this point and whether the issue will hold him back again in the future.

From West Ham’s point of view, chairman David Sullivan had apparently done his best to help according to the player himself.

“He has helped me massively,” he was quote as saying by The Athletic.

“I had glandular fever which later developed into Guillain-Barre syndrome (a rare and serious condition that affects the nerves).

“It was a difficult time in my life. Sullivan let me see his private doctor and I can’t thank him enough for actually believing me that there was something wrong in the first place.

“He trusted me, and I thankfully found out I had an issue which needed to be sorted out. I thanked him big time because he’s the one who pushed for the tests. I saw his doctor four to five times in the space of a week.”

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