Nathan Trott insisted the season isn’t over for the West Ham United Academy players despite their Premier League 2 campaign coming to an end on Friday night with a 3-1 defeat to Arsenal.
The Gunners were crowned Division 1 champions at London Stadium with their victory to round off the term, but for players like goalkeeper Trott who are keen to impress on the first team scene, the hard work continues.
With stopper Joe Hart unavailable to face Manchester City in the Premier League next week, young keeper Trott is set to be on the substitutes’ bench for a second time this campaign.
And the 19-year-old is now focused – after an impressive performance between the sticks against Arsenal – on doing enough to catch manager David Moyes’ eye.
He said: “The season is not over for us yet; Hopefully now I get opportunities to train with the first team and hopefully I can do that and at least get on the bench for them.
“It’s always good that you’re getting noticed against the top teams like I did against Arsenal on Friday and it’s always good to keep the good form going and putting in good personal performances.
“It’s been a really positive season; we’ve beaten big teams – Man United, Everton, Liverpool, Man City… We’ve competed with Chelsea and we have a lot of points and one of our objectives was to finish top six and hopefully we have done enough to have done that.
“It was a difficult game on Friday and Arsenal are a really good team on really good form. First half was a bit of a slow start and we gained focus in the second half and that’s when we got the goal.
“And now our season is over after a really good year but we have to stay focused because trying to impress the first team manager has to be the aim for players like myself before the summer begins.”