Alan Pardew has just made a quite frankly sensational claim about one West Ham United player in particular.
Former West Ham boss Alan Pardew often appears on talkSPORT now to gives his views on the current goings on in the game.
And he’s often quite outspoken about the Hammers – he suggested back in April that Lucas Paqueta quite clearly wanted to leave West Ham.
And Pardew also suggested that the West Ham owners should have offered David Moyes a new contract, rather than move him on.
I always liked Pards during his time in charge at West Ham. He always set up his team to win games, and produced a lot of exciting football during his tenure at the club.
The 63-year-old should know the club inside out, and he is certainly well-versed in what the fans expect from our team.
Alan Pardew makes bold claim about one West Ham player
Despite having no involvement with the Hammers anymore, Pardew clearly still keeps a close eye on us.
He spoke to talkSPORT about the current situation at the London Stadium.
And Pardew delivered a really interesting take on Paqueta and more specifically, what his teammates might think of him.
The former Hammers boss responded when asked by Adrian Durham whether Julen Lopetegui should drop the Brazilian.
“He’s a player that… I had Ben Arfa at Newcastle who could do things with the ball that, like, you know, top, top level, he had unbelievable talent,“ he said.
“He literally had zero defensive qualities in him, he didn’t want to defend, couldn’t defend, even when he did he’d give fouls away and caused a problem. And actually, the players in the team wanted him out of the team more than I did, it was almost like he’s costing us.
“He couldn’t see that of course and he got disgruntled and we had a few issues with him et cetera, et cetera, because he was frustrated. But, as much as we tried to put it in him, some players, it just doesn’t go in, that defensive angle of the game.
“Some don’t want to, to be fair to Ben Arfa, he tried in games, and I think Paqueta is in that frame, he’s almost like a liability at times when you haven’t got the ball, but he’s got unbelievable quality.“
That is actually a very fair observation from Pardew, and I like the comparison he made between Paqueta and Ben Arfa.
The Brazilian has all the talent in the world, but he can be an absolute liability at times.
Lucas Paqueta has been at fault for goals West Ham have conceded on numerous occasions this season.
A couple of examples were away at Tottenham and during our home clash to Arsenal when he lost the ball due to being overly confident in possession, before our opponents broke on us to score.
I actually wouldn’t mind at all if we sold him in January, as good as he undoubtedly can be on his day.
There are players out there who play in his position and offer much, much more all over the pitch.
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