Mark Warburton has absolutely raved about West Ham United ace Lucas Paqueta, and shared just how much Declan Rice loved the Brazilian.
West Ham signed Lucas Paqueta from Lyon in the summer of 2022 – a year before we sold Declan Rice to Arsenal.
Hammers boss David Moyes has started to get the best out of the Brazilian this season, and the Scot recently suggested that he loves watching him play.
The 26-year-old has bagged five goals and an assist in 16 games for West Ham so far this season, and he has controlled numerous matches for us this season.
Sure, there are some kinks that need to be ironed out of his game – most notably the regularity with which he loses the ball inside his own half – but Paqueta is a sensational player on the whole.
And now Warburton has highlighted how how highly thought of the former Lyon man is at the London Stadium…
Declan Rice absolutely loved Lucas Paqueta
Warburton was a coach at West Ham last season, but he left before the start of the 2023/24 campaign.
So he obviously worked very closely with Paqueta and Rice. And Warburton has told The Athletic just how highly he rates the Brazilian:
“He loved playing with Paqueta. If the pair of them were in the same team in a possession box (at training), no one got the ball back.”
“Yeah, I would. People will immediately say, ‘How naive is that? Look at the pool of talent available’, but Lucas Paqueta is a genius. More laid-back than a deck chair but I love watching him play football. Imagine Rice, Bellingham and Lucas in the same team.”
Warburton is right, Paqueta is an absolutely stunning player, and he brings so much to our team.
The exciting thing is that he can get better as well. However, it is a huge concern that Manchester City are allegedly showing interest in signing him.
Keeping Lucas Paqueta at West Ham will be incredibly hard – the way that Declan Rice thought about him tells us all we need to know.
Hopefully Moyes and the club manage to match the talented South American’s ambitions over the next few years because losing him would be a really bitter pill to swallow.
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