What Unai Emery says, and how Unai Emery is feeling, may be two very different things. The Aston Villa boss heads into the new Premier League weekend with a hole in his squad, one he hoped to fill with West Ham United’s Lucas Paqueta.
As he slotted a penalty past Matz Sels in the Nottingham Forest goal a fortnight ago, his actions spoke louder than words ever could.
On a day when Graham Potter put those Lucas Paqueta reports to bed, West Ham United’s brilliant Brazilian kissed the badge and threw an imaginary mobile phone aside.
You did not need a PhD in physiology to realise what Paqueta meant, hours after Fabrizio Romano reported that he was Aston Villa-bound.
And while Aston Villa did land Liverpool benchwarmer Harvey Elliott on deadline day, Jadon Sancho loans on loan too, Hammers News can confirm that it was Paqueta who Unai Emery really wanted.
Unai Emery during Aston Villa v AS Roma - Pre-Season Friendly
Photo by Ben Roberts – Danehouse/Getty Images
Unai Emery’s defiant Aston Villa response as Lucas Paqueta stays at West Ham United
Of course, Emery was never likely to go into great detail about his admiration for Lucas Paqueta, or the confusion surrounding that much-anticipated and eventually-aborted switch to Villa Park.
In fact, the former Arsenal, Sevilla and Paris Saint-Germain coach was in full preservation mode, insisting that he is ‘so, so happy’ with the make-up of Aston Villa’s squad even despite missing out on such a high-profile target.
MORE WEST HAM STORIES
“Now, we are trying to get everything with the idea to try and build a team as soon as possible with the new players,” Emery said, via the official Villa website, before Saturday’s 3pm kick-off against David Moyes’ Everton.
“For us, with the transfer window finishing, signing three players at the deadline, and the pre-season with some players who prepared with us but left, like [Jacob] Ramsey and Leon Bailey, we have to try to work every day to adapt the new players to our structure.
“We have to try to keep our motivation for how we were performing with the players we have and those who joined. I’m so, so happy with the structure of the squad we have now and how the players were responding who were here last week and this week, working.”
Lucas Paqueta greets the fans during Ipswich Town FC v West Ham United FC - Premier League
Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images
Newcastle skipper Bruno Guimaraes happy to see his Brazil teammate smile again
In Elliott and Sancho, Aston Villa signed two players with a combined total of one minute of Premier League football under their belts across the first three matchdays.
Paqueta, in contrast, is not only a fixture on the West Ham teamsheet but a common sight on the scoreboard these days too.
Paqueta earned a Goal of the Month nomination on the back of that screamer against Chelsea. One of four goals he has scored in his last four matches for club and country.
Close friend and Newcastle captain Bruno Guimaraes could not be happier seeing that thousand-watt smile return to Paqueta’s face, both in the claret and blue of West Ham and the yellow and green of Brazil.
“It was a difficult time for him, but we always tried to be by his side,” Guimaraes told ESPN, reflecting on Paqueta’s two-year spot-fixing trial. “There were many long exchanges of tears, agony, but also great happiness as the hearings progressed and he won. It further strengthened our friendship.
“He now looks like the Paqueta I knew from Flamengo and Lyon [who he left for West Ham three years ago]. A happy, cheerful, and content kid, always laughing and joking.
“He started the season on the right foot, despite being left-handed, scoring a lot of goals.
“If I were him, I wouldn’t be able to go through what he went through, the anguish of not knowing what will happen next. Your career being in the hands of others, it’s something you can’t control.
“Now, he’s happy and has that smile of gratitude on his face.”