AC Milan eye West Ham United top prospect Domingos Quina

West Ham United was once a footballing development powerhouse who gave us such greats as Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, and John Terry. Those days, sadly, are long gone. Yet, a few bright spots remain in their youth rankings.

Domingos Quina is one such bright spot. Quina’s contract is set to expire within a year and West Ham risk losing the highly touted prospect on a free, should they fail to convince the lad to sign a long term contract with the club. Given the roller coaster of a season West Ham is currently experiencing under the tenure of owners David Gold and David Sullivan, (the relegation battle and the complete lack of coherency and structure when it comes to planning their own future), one could see why Quina might be a bit apprehensive to sign. It also doesn’t help when club giants like Liverpool, Manchester United, and AC Milan have shown interest.

We spoke to Andrew Jones, the managing editor of our West Ham United blog, who was kind enough to address some of these concerns.

With everything going on in the club at the moment, can you see Quina not wanting to sign a long term contract knowing the likes of Liverpool, United, and AC Milan are interested?

With how catastrophic this season has been for West Ham, Domingos is definitely frustrated by how he hasn’t broken into the first team yet. I think he could easily see there’s too much dysfunction with the club for him to develop properly there, with West Ham being nowhere near elite strengthening why he thinks he should be on the main squad and not the U21s.

Is he really the prospect many people believe him to be - what makes him special?

The kid is such an electric talent, that a lot of these big clubs in Europe still see him as a quality prospect despite not coming close to first team action at West Ham this season. Getting stronger is always the key with youngsters with his build to not get knocked off the ball and he’ll need to keep adding to that. But it’s honestly been baffling how he hasn’t gotten some time, even with all of our attacking talent.

What’s your verdict? Will he leave?

Honestly, I think I see him leaving. There’s just too much interest from many better or bigger clubs for him to deal with more uncertainty here.

Care to wager where?

It’s a good question and it’s really hard to say at this point: Since he came from Benfica to Chelsea in 2013, I think he would prefer to stay in England. But I think he wouldn’t reject any place that could give him the best development. And Milan, no matter their own changes this season, could be on much stable ground with Gattuso at the moment. Liverpool and Man United have more talent of course than West Ham, and it could be more difficult for him to get meaningful time there.