David Moyes right to demand patience from West Ham United fans for Lucas Paqueta
Lucas Paqueta has had a slow start to his West Ham United career after a £51.3 million move in the summer from French club Lyon.
The Brazil international has played 350 minutes of first-team football with his new teammates but is yet to score or provide an assist.
David Moyes, while talking to football.london ahead of West Ham’s fixture against Wolves on Saturday, 01 October, stated the 25-year-old needs time to adjust to his new club.
“I think when we bought him, we saw him as a ten or an eight, if you want to put in footballing terms, he’s played in other roles as well,” he said.
“If you look at the second game, I think he played off the left in the second game for Brazil, so he’s a sort of multi-talented positional player who can play in several different roles and I think we are getting used to him and he is getting used to us.
“Maybe in a few weeks time, we will see him more as a number eight. Maybe in a few weeks time, we will see him as a number ten or 11.”
Time for patience
West Ham were very active in the recently concluded summer transfer window where they signed eight first-team players.
The most expensive of them was Paqueta and it is because of this reason the focus is so much on him to start producing the goods for the club.
However, Moyes’ comments about the player make so much sense because the 25-year-old has never been a kind of player ever since moving to Europe from his homeland to start showcasing his magic from the get-go.
When Paqueta joined Milan in the January transfer window in 2019, he scored just one goal in 13 appearances whereas when he moved to Lyon in the summer of 2020, he had just a goal to his name after 575 minutes of first-team football [Transfermarkt].
Those numbers suggest that the attacking midfielder is the kind of player who only thrives by taking time to settle in at a club and it is important that the fans must understand and give him the space he needs to start shining for the Hammers.