West Ham United: Sky Sports pundit gushes over ‘wonderful’ Lucas Paqueta
West Ham United are accelerating in their bid to sign Lucas Paqueta and Tim Vickery is a big fan of the mooted move for the Brazilian.
The Irons have had a bid worth a club-record £50.7million accepted for the 24-year-old, as reported by Alex Crook, and hope to complete the deal very soon.
Sky Sports pundit Vickery believes Paqueta would be an exceptional fit for the Hammers if they can make the deal happen given the gaps they need to fill in the squad.
“Lucas Paqueta is a very classy player. He’d be a wonderful asset to West Ham and to the Premier League because he has real left-footed class,” he said. “He is an elegant attacking midfielder. He’s so versatile. I’ve seen him playing for Brazil and fill three different positions in the same game reasonably well.
“He’s really an attacking midfielder but he can also play up front. You can play him as a withdrawn winger, and deeper in midfield – although there is a problem there as sometimes he can give the ball away too close to his own goal because he’s showboating.”
Game-changer
What Manuel Lanzini, Pablo Fornals and Said Benrahma all lack is that ability to turn a game around single-handedly and produce that one moment of pure genius that can swing the pendulum in the way of West Ham.
Paqueta can do that and he would come in to take their place in the starting XI which might just be the incentive needed to sell one or two of those if a good bid comes in.
Average can no longer cut it at the London Stadium with two consecutive European campaigns now achieved and aims to be even higher year on year.
This is the summer where David Moyes has to make significant changes to the norm at Rush Green and he has already started doing that with several new additions already through the door.
Paqueta’s arrival would be the proper statement of intent that would sound the warning sirens around the Premier League and start the surge up the league table from bottom to near the top.