PREMIER - West Ham first-team debutant Perkins: "It's been great"

Provided the chance to make his first-team debut, in latest West Ham EL match against Rapid Wien, 17-year old English U18 international attacking midfielder Sonny Perkins stated:

“Everything’s happened so quickly this season. People say that in football, things can change so quickly, but as long as you keep working hard, that can always happen. You’ve always got to believe something like that can happen like that. I think I’ve worked hard, and I’ve got a reward for it.

On Monday, a few of us [U23s] knew that we might be involved in first-team training. On Tuesday I went back, trained the whole session, and I think I trained well. Yesterday, four of us [Perkins, Aji Alese, Jamal Baptiste and Dan Chesters] travelled out here. It was surreal, really, because I’ve only been involved a couple of days and to fly out with the team… they’ve been great with me as well.

The guys who have come through the Academy naturally look out for me and whoever comes across, so they made me feel welcome, so I’m grateful to them for that. They made me feel comfortable to get on the ball and do what I can do. I’ve still got a long way to go to where I want to be, but hopefully this can be the start of many [appearances]. That’s what I want. 

It felt great out there, and to play with all of these great players and train with them, that can only help me get better. Hopefully there’s way more to come. It’s been great.

When I heard my name, I just knew I had to be ready and come on, work hard for the team and see out the win, and I think I did that. I saw Vlad get the ball out wide and obviously I know he’s got the ability to cross it like that, so I peeled off into space and as it’s come, I thought ‘just connect with it’. Maybe if I didn’t connect so cleanly with it, it would have gone in, but to be fair, the goalkeeper pulled off a great save and it was unlucky. It would have been a great moment!"