West Ham United are said to have completed the signing of talented teenage forward Sean Moore from Northern Irish outfit Cliftonville, according to reports.
A report on Sunday morning from the Belfast Telegraph claimed that the 17-year-old, who was played for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland at youth level, had agreed a move to join West Ham in the summer for £170,000, potentially rising to as high as £500,000 in the summer. football.london understands that the Hammers were interested in Moore in the January window, but with a view to signing him at the end of the season.
The report states that over ten clubs across England and Scotland combined were interested in the teenager, including Newcastle United, Everton, Brighton and Hove Albion, Celtic and Ipswich Town, although West Ham are said to have beaten all of those to his signature.
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Despite being just 17, Moore has been a regular for Cliftonville’s first team in his breakout year, making 36 appearances in all competitions to help them qualify for the qualification rounds of next season’s Europa Conference League.
In those games, Moore has scored five goals and provided five assists and his form has led to him winning the Young Player of the Year award at the 2023 Northern Ireland football awards.
Should the move go through, Moore would join a list of players recently swapping Northern Ireland for east London, with Michael Forbes, Patrick Kelly, Callum Marshall and Josh Briggs completing similar moves in recent years.
But if the move happens as reported, what are West Ham getting in Moore? football.london spoke to Brendan Crossan from the Irish News to get a full lowdown on Moore’s success at Cliftonville this season.
Why have West Ham and a number of other big clubs been looking at Sean Moore?
Because he is a very good talent. I wouldn’t say he’s exceptional but he’s a very talented player. His parent club Cliftonville, they promoted him to the first team this year and it reached a stage where the manager couldn’t leave him out. He was coming off the bench and making a real impact and he became a regular in the team. When you become a regular in Irish League football, at that young age, the Irish League standard has improved over the last ten years. If you are a young player of 16/17/18 and you’re playing first-team football in the Irish Premier League, then it means you have something. Maybe 20 years ago you could have been a young player playing in the Irish League in their first teams, but because the league has improved, the standard has improved, when a teenager breaks into their first-team here, they have quality and they have youth. That’s why West Ham and other clubs were looking at him and I know West Ham are definitely in talks with him, that is for sure. When you get into the first team in the Irish League, and if you are young, you are bound to attract interest from across the water.
Do his attributes suit what is expected in the English game?
I don’t know, is the short answer because it’s very, very difficult to predict the trajectory of a young player’s career. How many young players really, really make it in football? It’s such a tiny, tiny amount. The odds are stacked against Sean Moore, just like every other kid coming across the water. Has he got anything special? I think he’s a very, very talented player. It remains to be seen in my humble view if he is exceptional to make first-team football, but with the trajectory he is on at the moment, the forecast for him would be very favourable. Whether he is good enough to break into that real top, elite bracket, it’s so, so difficult to say. There’s no question about him, he’s a very gifted young player. He can play in a number of positions, he can play at left-back, he can play as a central striker, he can play on the left hand side. He gives versatility as well and it’s like anything, but when a young player like that comes around and there’s other clubs maybe sniffing around him, then you almost get to a point where signing a player like that isn’t strictly based on his talent, it’s almost based on we don’t want any of our rival clubs getting, so we’ll sign him, because in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge financial investment for a club like West Ham, but they are rolling the dice with this kid. They’re rolling the dice, but I’m sure they are rolling the dice with many kids of that age.
What are his strengths and weaknesses?
I have to give due credit to the standard of Irish football. Maybe people in England or wherever don’t know the league that well, so they may think it is part-time or whatever and that it is not of a great standard. For Sean Moore to break into the Cliftonville first-team is a challenge within itself, it’s an achievement in itself and it’s an achievement that he’s played 30 plus games for the first-team. His strengths are that he can produce moments of magic out of nothing. He has that sense of invincibility on his side, he’s not afraid to try things. What I like about Sean Moore is that the ability he has is uncoachable. He has just got skills that have lit up the Irish League for the last season because of his ability. He’s just not afraid to try things, which is the great thing about Sean Moore. The weaknesses are, he can be inconsistent, just like any 17-year-old. Also, he’s playing in the final third of the pitch, so therefore, it’s harder. It’s harder to be an attacking player than it is a defender, because he’s playing in the risk area of the pitch, he has to produce magic to make an impact in a game. His weaknesses are, aside his inconsistency, he can be a bit erratic with his form. He just needs to mature. This is not a weakness of Sean Moore’s, but he needs to mature more. There’s times where in the big matches, he’s produced the goods, but there are other big matches where he has been marked out of the game for Cliftonville this year. His final ball can be devastating, but it can also be inconsistent. That’s probably the position he is playing, it’s a difficult position. Also, that’s what you get from a young player. You’re not going to get an eight or nine out of ten out of a winger every week, particularly a young winger that he is, so you maybe have to cut him a bit of slack and allow him to make mistakes. He’s going to have a six out of ten, he may even have a five out of ten game, but he did enough with his first season in Cliftonville warrant first of all, the interest, but to also warrant what seems to be this move to West Ham. He’s produced eight or nine out of ten matches for Cliftonville, but he’s also produced five and six out of ten performances as well. That’s just simply because he’s young and I suppose, the position he is playing in is a difficult position to play in as well.
What promise has he already shown in senior football that he can build on in England?
I know his former youth team manager and a bit of a mentor of his, Mark Smith. Mark Smith is a former Cliftonville player, he’s in charge of all of the academy players. Mark wouldn’t be privy to hyperbole on players, meaning that he wouldn’t raise them up unless he think they deserved the hype. But I’ve spoken to Mark a couple of times about him, he says he comes from a great, strong family background, he has great manners, he’s got a great attitude. He’s got great attributes that you would like off the pitch. He is an intelligent young man and he’s mature beyond his years in that sense. Mark Smith would know players, he knows the players, he’s seen so many players coming through the youth ranks at Cliftonville and for Mark to say that this kid is as good as he’s seen at this level, I would refer to Mark’s judgement on players and his judgement on players and his judgement on Sean itself. I would just be a wee bit reluctant to hype him up too much, because he’s so young. I’ve seen him at his best and I’ve seen him at his not so good and there’s still that sort of inconsistency in his game that he has to work on obviously. Maybe, that full-time aspect of it at West Ham, if it comes to pass, will bring him on but he has the right character and the right sort of personality to want to improve. These are the things I am hearing about Sean Moore, so he has as good a chance as any young kid going over there, maybe slightly better because he’s had that year of experience at a pretty good standard of league game.
What do you think he needs to add to his game or improve on to give himself every chance of reaching the highest level?
I suppose decision making. That’s the biggest thing when you are playing that attacking third, what are the people looking for? They are looking to add good decision making, consistent decision making, good decisions on the ball. At times, his decision making can be a bit inconsistent, so he needs to work on that. But you say work on that, to be a better decision maker on the ball is not going to happen overnight. It’s going to happen over a period of time and if he gets the right environment to work in, there’s still a huge amount of improvement in him. He’s far from the finished article, but what he has is that bit of magic in him at times and I suppose, if he’s going to make it, he has to show that a bit more often.
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