Saïd Benrahma's quick rise and move to West Ham

Image courtesy of Reuters

After being signed from Nice in the French league in 2018, Saïd Benrahma was snapped up by the Brentford hierarchy, and was quickly developed into a player that the whole of the Championship was scared of. Brentford are well known for discovering players from so called minor leagues and transforming them into machines to be able to offload them to bigger clubs in the future and make a large profit, as this was seen with Ollie Watkins moving to Aston Villa, Neal Maupay moving to Brighton, and another moving to Villa in the form of Ezri Konsa.

So then when the time seemed right to offload Algerian winger Saïd Benrahma, it was West Ham who won the signature, even after rumours of clubs like Liverpool wanting to be involved. The form Benrahma had shown in his 2 years at the club, was by playing in 71 games and contributing to 50 goals over the course of the seasons. Initially on a loan deal, when the Algerian moved to West Ham there was a certain aura of hype about him due to the afore mentioned development of Brentford players.

It wasn’t the smoothest ride for him though when joining, as in the first 6 months, although he tallied up a few assists in the league, being in and out of the team didn’t help with consistency. Despite that, in January 2021, just half a season into his career, West Ham decided they like what the winger brought to the team and so triggered his clause to make the loan permanent.

Following that, heading into the 2021/22 season, both West Ham and Saïd Benrahma have been off to a flying start, consistently giving the ‘big 6’ a run for their money, and even beating the likes Liverpool and Tottenham with Benrahma being a big part of that having started most games alongside Jarrod Bowen and Pablo Fornals in them attacking midfielder roles. The winger has also really excelled in the Europa League this season, having made 2 starts and 1 substitute appearance, but getting 3 goals from that attacking role. West Ham fans will be hoping Benrahma’s form can continue and they can make a push for the elite European competition next season.