I won’t pretend to know much about Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Carlos Soler. To be honest, he wasn’t on my radar until West Ham were linked to him this summer. However, I’m quickly realising that the club needs to make this transfer happen.
I’ve long suspected that for the Hammers to thrive, it’s often a case of “No Paquetá, no party.” By that, I mean West Ham lacks midfield creativity, and even an under-par Paquetá can significantly impact our goal-scoring chances.
The Brazilian wasn’t particularly impressive during the Premier League season opener against Aston Villa, but it only took one moment of brilliance from him to change the game. Last night, Jarrod Bowen’s winning goal against Bournemouth was scrappy and fortunate, but it wouldn’t have happened without Lucas Paquetá’s attempt to chip the ball over the Cherries’ defence.
West Ham’s £50M man isn’t at his best right now, yet he still transforms a sluggish, uninspired midfield into one capable of feeding West Ham’s embarrassment of attacking players. Unfortunately, it’s too much pressure on one player, which is why the club must do everything possible to complete the signing of Spanish playmaker Soler.
Not to mention that a midfield that contains both JWP AND Soucek is completely dysfunctional eh.
Depends on your definition of dysfunctional?
Soucek & JWP only played on the same team for 1 season.
At the halfway point (19 games in, West Ham sat comfortably 6th, 10 wins and 33 points.) the Soucek/JWP combo was doing just fine.
Both played (Run-in-to-the-ground) over 50 games scoring 10/7 and however many assists.
The second half of the season collapse had so many other factors, that to suggest this Soucek/JWP are dysfunctional is simply unfair.
The next signing has to be a forward , not Abrahams after his injury. Early days for the German, Antonio and Ings not good enough .
Totally agree B, the problem with so many people on this site , including some reps of C.H . Will blatantly ignore statistics if it suits them.