(Credit: Imago)

James Barker

Fri 24 April 2026 19:40, UK

West Ham United may wish they hadn’t sold Luis Guilherme, as the winger is enjoying an impressive start to life as a Sporting CP player.

The 20-year-old joined West Ham in the summer of 2024 from Brazilian giants Palmeiras, and that naturally brought about major excitement levels from Hammers supporters.

Indeed, there is something about seeing your team sign a young, highly-rated attacking player from Brazil, and that’s exactly what Guilherme was.

He’d been developed through Palmeiras’ admired academy system, and has represented Brazil at numerous levels of youth international football.

However, his reported £25.5million West Ham transfer didn’t work out they way many had hoped it would, as he made just 18 senior appearances for the Hammers before leaving in the recent winter window.

How has Luis Guilherme started out at Sporting CP?

West Ham reportedly banked £14.8m for Guilherme‘s sale to Portuguese outfit Sporting CP at the beginning of January this year.

Still only 20-years old, the winger couldn’t break into neither of Graham Potter‘s or Nuno Espirito Santo‘s first-team plans this season, making just five Premier League appearances in 2025-26.

Indeed, he never played more minutes in one single game this season than the 45 he played against Bournemouth in November last year, failing to see half an hour in any of his other four appearances.

Sporting evidently saw something in the youngster though, and decided to take a chance on the opportunity to unlock his potential, and they appear to be doing exactly that.

Guilherme has only scored once and failed to provide an assist in 13 total appearances so far since joining Sporting, but that absolutely doesn’t tell the full story.

As per Sofascore, he’s played 1.5 key passes per game in Liga Portugal, whilst also recording a passing accuracy of 88 per cent with an 87 per cent accuracy rate inside the opposition half.

He’s also posting a 67 per cent dribble success rate, has won 59 per cent of his total duels and 100 per cent of his aerial duels, whilst also making zero errors leading to opposition goals.

Clearly then, Sporting are letting Guilherme play with the freedom to express himself, and the youngster is repaying them with underlying numbers that will put him firmly on the path to success if he keeps them up.

West Ham could’ve found role for Guilherme with patience

In fairness to West Ham, Guilherme didn’t particularly take his opportunities when they did arrive, but that was probably to be expected.

He moved to the London Stadium as a teenager having played just 45 games of competitive senior football with Palmeiras, and needless to say, the Premier League and English football as whole is vastly different to what he experienced in Brazil.

Of his 17 Premier League starts, he was afforded the chance to start in just two of them, and especially for a young player trying to make an impression, brief cameos from the bench don’t provide much of an opportunity for success.

However, he’s started six of his eight Liga Portugal games for Sporting this season, and he’s now already starting to show just how much quality and ability he has in one of Europe’s top leagues.

West Ham needed to show more patience and trust in Guilherme, as there must now be fears within the London Stadium that they’ve unnecessarily let a real gem of the future slip through their fingers.