Leeds United: It's a sad reality but every player has a price '“ Ritchie

Sam has come through the system and club academies are there to furnish your first team and if you get someone who can make a bit of money for the club, then that’s a bonus. It’s main operation should be to furnish your team, but ultimately everybody has got a price, unfortunately.

You even saw that at Manchester United when they sold Ronaldo to Real Madrid, sometimes you can’t turn offers down.

Leeds fans are obviously going to be disappointed as Sam was one of the club’s best players and has proved that recently with scoring a few goals of late and he’s a very talented player, no doubt about it.

Deep down despite the disappointment, they will wish him well and want him to show everyone that he can be a top Premier League player. It’s just unfortunate it’s not with Leeds.

You look at some of the others who have left the club in recent years such as Robert Snodgrass and Jonny Howson who have come and gone and unfortunately, it is a case of having to grin and bear it now for Leeds fans with their top players moving on.

If Leeds get some good players and they do well, there’s a chance that they might see them leave for a bit of money at some stage – which is the reality with the position Leeds find themselves in, playing in the Championship sadly.

That’s the reality for Leeds at the minute and the longer Leeds find themselves at this level they are going to be vulnerable.

Looking at it for Sam, it’s a great move and a great time to be involved at West Ham. They are a club on the up and are moving to the new stadium next season which will be an absolute fantastic place to play your football.

With all the things happening around West Ham, it’s a good time to be involved there as a young player.

Sam has been through a lot this season and don’t forget in previous seasons, he has had injuries to get over as well at Leeds. I think he has put up with a lot and come through a lot and in the last five, six months to a year, he is looking like the player everyone thought he was going to be again.

Credit to him, he has also got on with everything in a dignified manner.

I think we all knew that his move was probably going to happen this season, although Leeds have had to play Sam as well, which from the stance that Steve Evans started off with meant that they knew that they needed to play him as you can’t keep good players like Sam out of the side.

I actually didn’t know that some of Sam’s family were Hammers fans, so maybe that played a part in his move there as last week, it had looked like he was going to Everton. Now Sam’s uncle has got his Hammers shirt with his name on the back of his shirt and now we know why.

In terms of electing to move to West Ham, I think Sam has looked at it from a footballing sense and a ‘heartstring’ sense in terms of going there and he was also born in Essex. So there might feel part of him that is going back ‘home’ a little bit.

What he now has to do is keep his head down and feet on the ground because he is still a young player learning the game.

I just hope he will get some game time there early because he is at a stage of his career – and I have said this about previous players – where you can think: is it sometimes better going away from playing regularly in the Championship and maybe not playing every week in the Premier League? Perhaps I am doing Sam a disservice and Slaven Bilic will be planning on putting Sam straight in the side.

But if that isn’t the case, it could be detrimental to Sam’s ongoing development. I hope he does play early.