- Academy manager Terry Westley admitted Toni Martinez’s goalscoring record in the first half of the season is frightening
- The Spaniard bagged a hat-trick in the Hammers’ 4-0 win against Wolves on Monday
- Westley also believes the victory shows what a talented pool of players the Academy of Football has
Toni Martinez’s hat-trick in Monday night’s 4-0 Premier League 2 victory against Wolverhampton Wanderers prompted Academy manager Terry Westley to describe his record as frightening.
The Spaniard scored three terrific goals at the home of AFC Telford United – one a penalty – to, alongside Dan Kemp’s first half strike, down their Midlands opponents with ease.
Martinez, who signed for the Hammers from Valencia during the summer, now has 12 goals in eleven U23 matches this season and has impressed every time he has pulled on a claret and blue shirt.
After his trio of strikes against Wolves, boss Westley said: “Toni’s on double figures and he missed probably six weeks of the season. He has come from abroad, has had to settle, has been learning the language.
“That shows just how well he has done. He’s an out-and-out goalscorer. He puts his foot through the ball and he’s clinical.
“He can be frustrating because he’s not on the right side of the pitch sometimes when you want to play it up, but around the box he comes alive and to score double figures in the first half of the season at any level is difficult.
We have got some very talented players and it does bring a smile to my face tonight. That’s a lot of hard work, a combination of maybe three years.
Terry Westley
The PL2 side’s performance was one of their best of the season, alongside marvellous displays against Newcastle United and Leicester City earlier in the campaign.
And Westley went on to explain the Wolves showing is a result of years of hard work.
“You couldn’t wish for much more than that,” he continued. “We had a very young team, with six starting who can play in the youth team. Steve Potts and Mark Phillips deserve credit for the work they’re doing with the young players as well.
“As they’re coming through and getting into our team, they just show how far they’ve come. We played against a very good Wolves team tonight and we played particularly well both with and without the ball.
“It was good to see Martin Samuelsen back to what we know he can do, Declan Rice…it’s difficult to pick out individuals because as a team, collectively, Toni Martinez scoring hat-trick we were very, very good today.
“We have got some very talented players and it does bring a smile to my face tonight. That’s a lot of hard work, a combination of maybe three years. Everything you saw tonight came off. They can go away for their Christmas break in good spirits.
“We didn’t make any collective errors or individual errors. There were no silly back-passes. We have been talking about that. If you want to go and play in Slaven [Bilic]’s team, you can’t make those individual errors.”