West Ham’s Lucas Paqueta has come under fire from pundit Andy Gray for his performance in their recent 2-0 defeat to Fulham.
Gray specifically criticised Paqueta’s role in Fulham’s second goal. He pointed out that Paqueta’s attempt to dribble out of trouble in his own half resulted in a turnover that led directly to the goal. This wasn’t the only instance of Paqueta losing possession, as he was also dispossessed in the build-up to Fulham’s first goal.
Analysing the second goal on beIN SPORTS, Gray remarked on Paqueta “messing around” and “trying to do it on his own” before losing the ball.
While Paqueta was singled out for his errors, it’s important to note that West Ham’s entire team underperformed in the match. However, Paqueta’s recent praise as a potential world-class player made his mistakes even more glaring.
Despite his errors, Paqueta did create some scoring opportunities for West Ham, with two key chances created and a game-high of four successful dribbles.
The second goal conceded highlighted Paqueta’s need for quicker decision-making on the ball. However, there’s a shared responsibility for preventing such lapses. West Ham needs a collective improvement to avoid a similar outcome against Bayer Leverkusen.
Overall, while Paqueta’s performance against Fulham was disappointing, it’s important to consider the team’s overall struggles. West Ham needs to address these issues quickly or our season will be finished.
He tries to “do it all on his own” for a reason, Andy Gray. Because he looks around at his team mates and thinks “Nope, not a hope. If I want my win bonus, I’m going to have to try and make things happen myself”.
And also because he has listened to the manager’s “Nah, don’t actually play football ya idiot – let ’em have the ball and we’ll watch…” team talk and thought “Nope, not a hope. If I want my win bonus, I’m going to have to try and make things happen myself”.
It’s not rocket science, My Gray, and I don’t blame him. If he was surrounded by better, more aggressive players, he would trust them and wouldn’t have to do it himself.
It’s why we will lose him in the Summer, unless we follow this pattern:
WEEK 1: Sorry, Mr Moyes. Thank you for your service. We’ve had some good times, and thank you for what you’ve done for us, but it’s no longer required.
WEEK 2: Good afternoon, Mr Silva. Welcome to West Ham. PLEASE help build our club alongside Mr Steidten here. Here’s £200m to do that.
WEEK 3: Paqueta returns home from his holiday to find we’ve signed 8 decent new, young, hungry players and shipped out Ings, Johnson, Soucek, Cornet, Mubama, Aguerd (sadly) & Zouma. Paqueta thinks “OK, we might have a chance here” and commits his future to the club.
WEEK 4: Silva visits our “Academy of Football” and insists on a new pathway for youngsters to gain first team experience. It’s literally built into their contracts. If they’re good enough to sit on our bench, they’re good enough to play minutes!
WEEK 5: We show, in our first pre-season friendly how much better football will be this coming season.