With Porto striker Toni Martinez last week scoring a hat-trick against Arouca, the Portuguese media is now highlighting the player’s potential.
To speak about his past, newspaper A Bola features an interesting story about his time at West Ham United.
Martinez belonged to the Hammers’ academy between 2016 and 2019, and even made three appearances for the first team, but ended up moving to Portugal.
Now to talk about what he had done for West Ham’s youth ranks, A Bola spoke to his former coach Terry Westley, who mentioned the big potential he managed to show in London.
“I remember that aggressive desire to score goals. He was always ready to fight and try to score, he believed that he would be judged by the number of goals at the end of the season,” Westley told A Bola.
“That performance against Manchester United was tremendous. There were three goals in our 4-2 victory, even more so in the main stadium.”
Westley even claimed Martinez could return to the Premier League one day, perhaps to show what he didn’t have the opportunity at West Ham.
“If he continues to score goals at that volume at FC Porto, I think it’s inevitable that he’ll play more often at the start and be aware that there are many top-level clubs looking for young scorers. Toni is 25 years old and he’s still young, so he has every chance to be a top striker at a big club.
“This [next] game could be crucial for him. No striker or coach is indifferent to a game with three goals. He will have more game time and if he continues to improve, work hard, he will really have the best season of his career. This is the right age. Even Harry Kane didn’t have it easy at first.”
During his time at West Ham, Martinez had loans at Oxford United, Real Valladolid, Rayo Majadahonda and Lugo, having left for free to Famalicão in 2019.
His appearances for the Hammers were all in FA Cup games in January 2018. He was used twice against Shrewsbury and once against Wigan, but couldn’t score any goals in those matches.
