West Ham United manager David Moyes admits he believes midfielder Lucas Paqueta is better in a deeper role, despite not initially playing him there.
Paqueta, whose £35.6m arrival from Olympique Lyonnais has the potential to rise to a club-record fee of as high as £52.7m after potential add-ons are triggered, has been a regular for the Hammers since his arrival this season, but has predominantly been used as the attacking midfielder in a 4-2-3-1 formation since his big-money switch to east London.
However, in recent weeks, Moyes has opted to use Paqueta in more of a deeper central role, with Tomas Soucek either playing further forward, or the formation changing to a 3-4-3 and Soucek missing out entirely.
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When Moyes first signed Paqueta, he admits that he intended on using him as the attacking midfielder, but has altered things recently to allow him to play in his preferred deeper role, where he often frequents for Brazil’s national team.
“When we bought Lucas, we looked at him as more of a No 10. We tried to bring in someone who could give us a link between the midfield and forward players and I still think it may be,” said Moyes.
“But his feeling is, if you look at where he's played for Brazil, it's tended to be Casemiro and Paqueta (in midfield) and Neymar getting the No 10 role. Lucas Paqueta was slightly deeper. So we've tried to give him the opportunity to play slightly deeper where he's played for Brazil. “I'll be honest, we brought him for eight to ten goals, for eight to ten assists. But if you're asking me how he's doing, he's settling in much better, he's playing better in games. We're playing him more like a No 8 if you want to call it that, alongside Dec. But the fact is, yeah, we hoped he would get us goals or add assists.”
While a partnership between Paqueta and captain Declan Rice is slowly starting to blossom, by playing the duo together, it leaves Moyes with dilemmas in other areas of the pitch.
Moyes admits that he is currently trying to strike a balance between getting the best out of Paqueta, Rice and Soucek, as well as the rest of the team.
“I've got to also think about what's best for the team,” Moyes explained. “Before the winter break, we'd played that way, Lucas as the No 10 and Dec and Tomas behind. We did it against Leicester and Crystal Palace. They were huge games for us and they didn't go our way.
“We didn't get the feel. So we decided, okay, we'll see how it settles in. What that's done is it's disrupted some other things which we may need to look to alter as well.”
Paqueta has settled in well to life at the London Stadium so far, having arrived just over five months ago.
Paqueta’s introduction is helped by playing alongside former Lyon teammate and Brazil-born Italian Emerson. It has also helped that his experiences in Serie A and Ligue 1 prior to joining West Ham has made him speak multiple languages.
Known for his samba dances in celebrating goals, Moyes wants to embrace the Brazilian flair out of him, adding he cannot fault Paqueta’s current work-rate.
“He's settling in great with the boys. He's a very good character. We like him a lot,” Moyes added. “He trains well. He's a good type, he really is.
“If you took the word "Brazilian" away and you took the other side – his effort, his commitment, his application to get about – is so, so good. Now what we want is a bit of Brazilian, which is making the goals, scoring the goals, making the difference when we need it.
“I'm pleased with the way he's coming on. He was four weeks late in coming in. It was not quite deadline day but then it was getting him ready. He missed the first month of the season and then had to come into a side not playing as well as we had done, us thinking he was coming in to make the difference and it didn't quite go that way.”
The question now remains for Moyes over how to best use his midfield, whether he does or does not play Soucek with Rice and Paqueta and how all three them can play alongside each other.
As seen recently, Moyes has plenty of options and formations he can use, for him, it is all about trying to find which one works best for the talent at his disposal.
“We've tried to get Declan forward up the pitch in the last year or two,” added Moyes. “Which in a way affected Tomas Soucek. Soucek if you look the year before got 10 goals arriving in the box.
“What we've done is with Paqueta coming in next to Dec, it means Dec has got to do more of a steady job because Lucas is a midfield player closer to being an attacking one than he is a defensive one. We've been trying to find ways of scoring goals.
“Sometimes we've said we won't play Tomas to get a more attacking midfielder in alongside Declan. We've been tweaking that. We've got some results with it but I had brilliant results when I had Tomas and Declan alongside each other as well. But in the first half of the season we've not been able to find the goals.”
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