South American football expert Tim Vickery has sent a warning to David Moyes regarding West Ham’s attempts to sign Lyon’s Lucas Paqueta.
It emerged on Wednesday that the Hammers had made a £33.75m bid for the Brazil international, which has since been rejected by the Ligue 1 outfit.
However, transfer expert Dean Jones claims the Hammers are still in pole position to secure the 24-year-old’s signature and that the deal “could move quickly.”
But Vickery, who is a well-known expert on South American football, has warned David Moyes that while the Brazilian would be a “wonderful asset to West Ham”, he would also represent a “challenge” to David Moyes when it comes to his attitude.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Vickery said: “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 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 You can play him as a withdrawn winger, and deeper in midfield – although there is a problem there as sometimes he can give the ball away too close to his own goal because he’s showboating.
“This is the one potential problem with him, which is why he’s being linked with West Ham having not quite hit the expectations at AC Milan.
“There is a little bit of the petulant schoolboy about him. It would be a challenge of man-management for David Moyes.”
It’s a glowing report for a player who is a starter alongside Neymar for the Brazil national team, but struggled to make an impact in Italy with AC Milan when he first arrived in Europe from Flamengo.
But the comments regarding his character – with him supposedly having a “petulant schoolboy” type personality – certainly goes against Moyes’ ideal player when he’s recruiting for his squad.
Moyes has always made it no secret that he would not simply sign players for the sake of it and would always hold out for the perfect player for his team, on the pitch and in the dressing room.
The likes of Tomas Soucek, Vladimir Coufal and Jarrod Bowen are all examples of Moyes’ perfect player – hard working, team players and have enough quality to significantly improve the squad.
But if Vickery is right in what he’s saying, Paqueta might have the ability to improve West Ham’s attack, he may pose a threat to the harmony in the dressing room, which Moyes has worked so hard to build since his return to the club two-and-a-half years ago.
Is Moyes getting desperate enough to risk that in order to add some much-needed quality and creativity to his squad after starting the season with three consecutive defeats in the Premier League without scoring a goal?
Or is he confident Paqueta does not pose too much of risk when it comes to dressing room harmony after all, with his background checks on the player coming back as satisfactory?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
