David Moyes calls for more from Paqueta after Newcastle tried to sign him

03 February 2023 , 22:30

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David Moyes' team have won three of their past four in all competitions but face Newcastle away on Saturday.

David Moyes is calling on Lucas Paqueta to bring out the Brazilian flair after granting the West Ham midfielder his wish of playing in a deeper role.

Paqueta, a club-record £51m signing from Lyon last September, was brought in as a No10 who the manager thought could provide “eight to 10 goals” a season. But since returning from the World Cup the 25-year-old has mostly been used in his preferred holding position after convincing Moyes that he could more impactful there.

Newcastle United, who West Ham face at St James' Park on Saturday evening, were also interested in signing Paqueta last summer and, after an initially tricky couple of months in East London, Moyes is now urging him to kick on as West Ham look to steer clear of relegation.

“He’s a good type, really is,” Moyes said. “Take the word Brazilian away and look at the other side - his effort, his commitment, his application to get about and do the work. That has been so, so good.

“But now what we want is a bit of Brazilian - scoring the goals, making the goals and making the difference when we need it. That’s the little bit that we’ve missed.

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“I’m pleased with how he’s coming along. It’s not easy to settle in. He missed the first month of the season and then had to come into a side that - I wouldn’t say we were struggling - but we hadn’t been playing as well as we had done. He was coming in to make a difference and it didn’t quite go that way.”

Moyes, who thinks it is “good news” for West Ham that Newcastle’s own Brazil midfield star Bruno Guimaraes will be suspended for this evening’s game after his red card in Tuesday's Carabao Cup semi-final, believes moving Paqueta alongside Declan Rice in midfield has “disrupted some other things” and warned that other alterations may be needed.

Lucas Paqueta struggled to make an impact in a No10 role so West Ham are now using him in a preferred deeper role.

That potentially includes Rice having to limit his own desire to get forward.

“With Lucas moving back, it means Dec has to do a little bit more of a steady job because Lucas is certainly closer to being an attacking midfielder than a defensive one,” Moyes added. “We’ve been trying to find ways of scoring goals. Sometimes we’ve said we won’t play Tomas [Soucek] to try and get a more attacking midfield player in alongside Declan.

“We’ve been tweaking that as well. We’ve gotten some results with it but we had brilliant results with Tomas and Declan playing alongside each other in the past as well.”

January signing Danny Ings could return from injury on Tyneside but defender Kurt Zouma and striker Gianluca Scamacca remain sidelined.

Alan Smith