West Brom academy star who has played once in four years backed to find new club after Portsmouth blow
Albion academy graduate Nathan Ferguson has endured a devastating spell of injuries since his Hawthorns departure in 2020.
The defender was thrust into the first team squad by Slaven Bilic back in 2019 - playing a key role in the first half of the 2019/20 campaign.
After 21 outings for Albion and having become the club's first choice right back, it looked like he was set for a Premier League move to Crystal Palace.
Injury scuppered the move, but he eventually would make the switch to Palace after turning down a new contract.
Albion received £900,000 following a tribunal - while Ferguson would go on to suffer a catalogue of devastating injuries at Palace.
In four years at Palace he would featured just once, as a substitute in a Boxing Day clash with Tottenham in 2021.
Last summer he was released - and since then has been out of contract and on the lookout for a new club.
Earlier this summer, it emerged that the academy graduate had been training with Championship side Portsmouth in a bid to land a deal.
He has featured four times during pre-season for the Fratton Park side - but has been dealt another blow with the club deciding against offering him a contract.
However, Pompey boss John Mousinho has revealed that Ferguson had been with his side for longer than just pre-season, and has backed him to find himself a new club.
He said: "We spoke to Nathan about how the opportunities - in terms of minutes - were now going to go and we wanted him to see what he could explore elsewhere.
"We didn’t publicise it heavily towards the back end of last year, but Nathan was training with us from about February onwards. He never missed a training day, was always fit and managed to get games in pre-season as well.
"We have seen, particularly in the Reading game, how well he’s done. He showed glimpses throughout pre-season of what he is capable of so
"To keep himself fit for that amount of time was really positive. To keep himself fit again in pre-season and then take that leap to playing games for the first time was really big for Nathan.
"Nathan’s got that six months worth of training behind him, he’s had a full pre-season, and can now show footage to other clubs.
"He can actually point to the evidence of the fact he has played. We can send training data, we can send physical data, which is all really good.
"He is a very, very good athlete and a really good kid, so I think it will really help."
