Recent reports out of West Ham appear to show chairman David Sullivan’s thoughts crystallising on the transfer strategy for the club’s biggest assets: Despite all of the early season rhetoric that ‘they’re not for sale’ it appears that he, or Tim Steidten, or Julen Lopetegui, or all three have reached a conclusion. (Now that would be a first this year – consensus!).
Whoever makes the decisions, it appears a concrete decision’s been taken over two of West Ham’s ‘Crown Jewels’ Lucas Paquetá and Mohammed Kudus.
Mohammed Kudus, who wants to leave anyway, we are told, may be sold to fund a striker purchase. (C and H, this morning).
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Contrastingly, Julen Lopetegui showed his public support for Lucas Paquetá with the ‘warm embrace’ after Paquetá’s penalty. A couple of weeks ago the rumours started appearing that Paquetá wanted to return to Brazil to his boyhood club, Flamenco, on a loan deal, the news from ‘sources’ – admittedly not ours – claimed then that West Ham wanted to sell Paqueta to Botofago and make their young striker Igor Jesús part of the deal.
It now appears that any form of quick loan to take Paqueta back to his home is ‘off’: As per Claret and Hugh associate editor Sean Whetstone on Twitter / x: ‘West Ham have zero interest in loaning out the player or letting him go for next to nothing on a permanent deal and would prefer to wait for the outcome of his FA tribunal before making any decision on his future. The social media post and kissing the badge send conflicting signals as to Brazilian’s state of mind.”
Lucas Paqueta looks fed up
So, until the end of the season when Paquetá’s FA enquiry should be concluded, it looks like he’ll be going nowhere. Nobody is going to get their multi million cheque book out before the FA decision.
At which point if he’s cleared, he’ll be worth far more than at present: At the moment he’d need a bargain basement sale price for another club to take the ‘risk’ with a potential lifetime ban hanging over his head.
So it appears David Sullivan is playing the long game rather than just bending to the player’s wishes for a cheap exit now.
Time will tell if this was a gamble that pays off for West Ham. In the meantime I can’t see his patchy form improving anytime soon with the FA enquiry due to start in March. We can but hope as there were some stirrings against Bournemouth.
[As always important to stress that Paquetá denies all the allegations]