This is why West Ham United have recalled Sunderland defender

West Ham United have recalled Frederik Alves from his loan spell at Sunderland.
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The central defender made ten appearances for the Black Cats after arriving in the summer, but struggled for regular game time and did not start a League One game.

The Premier League club have therefore moved to bring an early end to the loan, as expected.

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Though Lee Johnson has said that he expects there to be opportunities for Arbenit Xhemajli and Ollie Younger to impress in the near future, it is likely that Sunderland will now go back into the market.

Frederik Alves in actionFrederik Alves in action
Frederik Alves in action

Alves’ return to his parent club means they now have another slot for a further loanee to take a place in the matchday squad.

Sporting Director Kristjaan Speakman said: “Throughout Freddy’s loan, we have remained in regular dialogue with him and West Ham United regarding his programme.

“He’s progressed and he’s matured off the pitch, but he’s missing the frequency of games required at this stage of his development and we collectively understand the need for him to be playing regular football.

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"Having reviewed this with his parent club, we agreed that it is the natural solution for him to return in January to plan out the second part of the season. We thank West Ham United and we wish Freddie well in his career.”

Speaking to the Echo earlier this month, Speakman said his lack of game time was predominantly a consequence of the strong form of others in the squad.

He said. "Frederik has had some real positive experiences with us but he's probably not had the gametime that he would want.

"Quite rightly, because he's a young Premier League player coming in wanting to play games.

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"But like I've said before, our squad of players has performed really, really well and I think that's a really good marker of having competition in the squad to lift the level up.

"It's always difficult when players come on loan and don't quite get the minutes that they want, that their parent club wants and that we wanted to get out of them in the first place."But I think that is more down to the fact that everyone has done really well, rather than Frederik not meeting some sort of level."