Sports Evolve
David Moyes has given an honest assessment of West Ham’s record signing, Lucas Paqueta’s performance this season.
Despite the club paying a significant amount, believed to be over £50m, for the versatile player from Lyon, there is still room for improvement.
Moyes acknowledges that Paqueta needs time to settle in but has also expressed that he expected more progress by now and hopes to see the talented player make an impact in the Premier League soon.
“When we bought Lucas, we looked at him as more of a No 10,” admitted the boss, as reported by Football London.”We tried to bring in someone who could give us a link between the midfield and forward players and I still think it may be.
“But his feeling is, if you look at where he’s played for Brazil, it’s tended to be Casemiro and Paqueta and Neymar getting the No 10 role. Lucas Paqueta was slightly deeper. So we’ve tried to give him the opportunity to play slightly deeper where he’s played for Brazil.
“I’ll be honest, we brought him for eight to ten goals, for eight to ten assists. But if you’re asking me how he’s doing, he’s settling in much better, he’s playing better in games. We’re playing him more like a No 8 if you want to call it that, alongside Dec. But the fact is, yeah, we hoped he would get us goals or add assists.”
Despite the frustration, Moyes remains optimistic and has praised Paqueta’s efforts. However, it’s now time to see the player’s flair and quality on the field to earn crucial points for West Ham this season.
“If you took the word “Brazilian” away and you took the other side – his effort, his commitment, his application to get about – is so, so good,” added Moyes. “Now what we want is a bit of Brazilian, which is making the goals, scoring the goals, making the difference when we need it.
“I’m pleased with the way he’s coming on. He was four weeks late in coming in. It was not quite deadline day but then it was getting him ready. He missed the first month of the season and then had to come into a side not playing as well as we had done, us thinking he was coming in to make the difference and it didn’t quite go that way.”
