Aston Villa have reportedly had a transfer proposal for Lucas Paqueta rejected by West Ham United as we step up our touted interest in the Brazilian international.
The 28-year-old joined the Hammers from Lyon in 2022 after previous spells at Flamengo and AC Milan, and in that time he’s contributed 20 goals and 14 assists in 123 appearances for our Premier League rivals.
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With Villa making a disappointing start to the new campaign as we’ve struggled in the final third and have seen Jacob Ramsey and Leon Bailey depart this month, reinforcements in attack are undoubtedly needed to bolster Unai Emery’s options.
However, according to The Guardian’s Jacob Steinberg, Villa have had an initial loan bid with an obligation to buy rejected by West Ham, as it’s noted that they don’t want to lose their star man so late in the transfer window.
With just days remaining before the deadline, it’s going to be an exciting yet anxious period from a Villa perspective as we need to add quality to the group, not only to fill the voids left by the exits of key individuals, but also to strengthen and improve the squad to ensure we continue our progression under Emery.
Although Paqueta’s goal involvements are quite low for a player of his quality, he has the technical quality, creativity and tactical intelligence to potentially be a pivotal addition to this Villa XI, and so it’s easy to see why Emery would be keen to add him to the mix.
However, in addition to the report above, the Athletic have also claimed that although there is interest from Villa, getting a deal done for Paqueta will be hard, and so it remains to be seen if Paris Saint-Germain ace Marco Asensio ultimately remains the favourite to arrive ahead of the deadline, having been heavily linked with a return to the club in recent weeks.
Based on the speculation, it seems clear that Emery wants to add a creative playmaker to play centrally to help us unlock stubborn defences, thus perhaps pushing Morgan Rogers into wider roles where is arguably less effective.
Nevertheless, we need new signings to freshen things up and give everyone a lift, and although it could be argued that pace and width are the exact qualities we need, Paqueta would certainly add a different dynamic to our attack that could help provide a fundamental boost.
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