By Louis Nixon

Signed over a season ago now, Guilherme has gone from an exciting young player to being completely frozen out, with the Brazilian International now set to be sold this winter. 

West Ham signed the Brazilian forward in the summer transfer window of 2024. He was bought for a staggering £25 million and was tipped to be the new big kid on the block, but unfortunately, as time has passed, reality has begun to kick in, and there’s a realisation that this 19-year-old isn’t what everyone thought he would be and has struggled to reach the heights anticipated. 

To play 18 matches and not have a single goal or an assist is enough to raise questions… Guilherme was never expected to walk into West Ham and become a starter; he was designed to be an impact sub and by now, with 265 minutes of Football played, a return of some sort has to be expected. 

Some might’ve suggested that he needs to receive more game time, but despite the quality that the club had expected him to reach, did they truly believe that he would replace Jarrod Bowen in the winger slot which the Brazilian can only play in? In hindsight, it’s an utterly bizarre signing, but that’s only due to hindsight providing the food for a thought. 

Additionally, Guilherme’s end product hasn’t been able to help his own case. We’ve seen him have numerous moments of talent, such as dribbling through defenders, and it appears that he just loses all confidence when making a final decision and completely blunders it in the final moment!

A lack of game time? A lack of ability? It could be all of the above, which is incredibly frustrating because underneath the criticism and nerves, you can see the talent behind him, but unfortunately, he’s not been able to get the best out of it straight away which is why a move away could be best for him. 

He would be able to reignite the fuel that he already has, and if he hit the ground running elsewhere, it wouldn’t surprise me if he excelled at a great level to the heights we all believed he would initially reach. 

Whilst we’ve paid £25 million and have nothing to show for it, it would be unreasonable to say that West Ham will be taking an 100% loss on the transfer seeing as the Brazilian had a handful of clubs interested in him and a move in January could very well happen, so not all is lost regarding the transfer fee, but it’ll certainly take a magic wand to see the entire fee recouped, and it should be considered as a success if he get half of what we paid for the Brazilian. 

Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out, but we can now only hope to recoup some of the fee and move on to another player.