Manchester City won’t pay more than £80m to sign West Ham United star Lucas Paqueta
Manchester City are not willing to pay more than £80m to sign Lucas Paqueta from West Ham this summer, according to Football Transfers.
Writing on their official website (17 August), the news outlet report that the Premier League champions are preparing to return with a new bid for the Brazilian midfielder.
However with West Ham refusing to accept less than £85m to let him leave a year before his release clause for the same amount kicks in, there seems to be an impasse between the clubs.
“West Ham have set a price of £85m for Paqueta so it remains to be seen whether the two clubs are prepared to find a solution,” they wrote.
“The amount is the same as the release clause in Paqueta’s contract that becomes active next year but West Ham will let the 25-year-old leave for that now too.
“We understand that Man City are, at this moment in time, not prepared to go over their next offer of £80m, leaving a £5m gap in valuation between the two clubs.”
Their problem
Paqueta is arguably the best football player we have at our club and the most influential now too since Declan Rice left for Arsenal.
The Brazilian’s release clause doesn’t kick in until next summer, but with the club knowing that he wants to take the opportunity to move to City we have told them to pay it up now instead and they can have him.
But if they’re not willing to do that it’s not for us to offer them a greater discount, and it would simply mean that the player has to stay for another year at least or until someone pays up the cash to take him.
West Ham would already be limited on time to try and replace him, and with his qualities it would be a hard task even with all the time in the world.
So it’s on City to come up with the funds or terms to make us accept letting him go now, as it has to favour us to do a deal. This is likely to drag on for a little bit longer now.
In other West Ham news, Steidten jets out of UK to seal brand new transfer for the Hammers.