West Ham United announce signing of 17-year-old Josh Rands

Premier League club West Ham United announced that it has signed 17-year-old center forward Josh Rands from Scottish Premier League club Hibernian to play for West Ham United's U21 team.

Randers joined Hibernian's youth training camp at the age of 10 and has always been a regular goal scorer for the team. In the summer of 2023, Randers signed his first professional contract with Hibernian and made his senior team debut in the Scottish League Cup semi-final in November of the same year.

Randers is very happy about joining West Ham United, saying: "It feels great to be able to sign for such a huge club. Every football player dreams of playing in the Premier League and this is just the first step, but it is a surreal moment for me."

“I developed physically before I developed technically, so I was bigger than everyone else my age. This meant I always played against players a year older, which helped me improve because I could compete with stronger and more experienced players. Playing and training with the first team last season also helped me improve a lot.”

Originally, Randers was going to start a trial at West Ham United at the end of last summer, but he broke his arm during the game, which caused Randers to be suspended for 3 months. This forced Randers to wait until January this year to come to West Ham United for practical training. His performance was impressive, prompting West Ham United to finally decide to sign him.

Randers said: "I was supposed to come to West Ham United for training in August, but I broke my arm. Although I was disappointed because of the injury for three months, in a way, it was a blessing in disguise. I think after recovering from the injury, I became stronger and faster because I worked hard off the court. "