Four former West Ham United players have been shortlisted for a place in the Premier League Hall of Fame.
Academy of Football graduates Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick and strikers Jermain Defoe and Les Ferdinand are among the 15-man shortlist who could join managers Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger as the 2023 Inductees.
Supporters around the world can vote for three of the 15 shortlisted players between now and 6pm on Monday 10 April. The three players who receive the most votes will join the previous 16 players to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, including former Hammers Frank Lampard and Ian Wright.
Rio Ferdinand
Rio Ferdinand is one of the most decorated players in Premier League history. The ball-playing defender joined West Ham as a schoolboy and made his debut in a Premier League draw with Sheffield Wednesday at the Boleyn Ground on 5 May 1996, aged 17.
Ferdinand established himself during the 1996/97 season, scoring his first Premier League goal at Blackburn Rovers on 1 February 1997. He then enjoyed an outstanding 1997/98 campaign, starting 35 Premier League matches as the Irons finished eighth and winning the Hammer of the Year award, aged just 19.
The youngster went on to make 127 Premier League appearances in Claret and Blue, scoring two goals, before joining Leeds United for a record £18m fee in November 2000. From there, in 2002 he moved to Manchester United, where he won six Premier League titles.
When he finished his career at Queens Park Rangers in 2015, Ferdinand had made 504 Premier League appearances, won 291 games, kept 189 clean sheets and scored eleven goals.
Les Ferdinand
It says everything you need to know about Les Ferdinand’s Premier League achievements that he was already 25 when the competition was introduced in 1992, yet stands eleventh on the list of all-time scorers with 149 goals.
A non-league star with Southall and Hayes, centre-forward Ferdinand joined Queens Park Rangers in 1987 and scored 20 goals as the Super Hoops finished the inaugural Premier League season, 1992/93, in fifth place.
After two more top-half finishes and 40 more goals, Ferdinand joined Newcastle United, where he scored 41 goals in two seasons and forged a sensational partnership with Alan Shearer as the Magpies twice went close to winning the Premier League title.
Ferdinand returned to London with Tottenham Hotspur in 1997 and spent six seasons there, scoring 33 goals, including the 10,000th in Premier League history. He joined West Ham United in 2002, scoring two goals in 14 appearances before rounding out his Premier League career with Leicester City and Bolton Wanderers.
Michael Carrick
When it comes to underrated players in the Premier League era, few fit the description as readily as Academy of Football graduate Michael Carrick.
A winner of the FA Youth Cup and UEFA Intertoto Cup with West Ham while still a teenager, Carrick signed his first professional contract on his 17th birthday on 3 January 1998.
During his time at the Club, Carrick honed the skills and learned the life lessons necessary to become a top professional – one who would earn 34 England caps and become one of the most-decorated players in English football history with Manchester United.
Carrick won five Premier League titles, one FA Cup, two EFL Cups, and one UEFA Champions League and retired in 2018. He is now manager at promotion-chasing Middlesbrough, who sit third in the EFL Championship table.
Jermain Defoe
Few Premier League strikers have the quality of finishing that Jermain Defoe showed across his career that spanned over 750 senior matches.
The forward, who made his West Ham United debut in 1999, went on to score 40 goals in 104 appearances for the east Londoners.
Defoe would go on to play for Tottenham Hotspur, Portsmouth, Sunderland and AFC Bournemouth and register a total of 163 goals and 33 assists in just four shy of 500 Premier League appearances.
After featuring prominently at the U21 level, the London-born striker made his international debut came in March 2004, and would net 20 goals in 57 senior appearances for England.
