By Louis Nixon

Seeing as Lucas Paqueta has officially left West Ham and with just three days left in the transfer window, should the club begin to replace Lucas Paqueta, or should we hold our cards and focus elsewhere? 

West Ham United have won three games in a row at this moment in time, one in the FA Cup against QPR and the other against both Sunderland and Spurs in the Premier League.

Across those three fixtures, Lucas Paqueta didn’t compete in any, but that obviously isn’t simply down to the fact he wasn’t in the squad, it was more so due to the new style of tactic Nuno and his coaching staff had developed, in which he wasn’t a part of. 

On several occasions, Nuno has spoken about how irreplaceable Lucas Paqueta is, and inferred that no one could replace him, so if no one could replace him, what can be done to facilitate that..? Change the tactic. 

West Ham have developed a new style of play which integrates Matheus Fernandes a lot more and it’s now more suited towards his style, in which he has excelled in throughout these past couple of matches. Nuno’s new side currently doesn’t have a number 10 role, perhaps on the generated formation it does, but throughout a game, there isn’t a primary number 10, it’s more floaters who pick up the ball and decide where it goes. 

I suspect that Nuno decided not to bother attempting to replace Paqueta, either due to it being a monumental task, or the fact that the Hammers wouldn’t have the time to do so, going through the draining process of identifying, discussing and implementing, all takes too long with just three days and in these positions, you often find yourself paying too much for players, which is likely amongst many reasons as to why we’ve decided to tread lightly. 

Overall, the simple truth is that no, we don’t need a direct Paqueta replacement. Perhaps in the future we might need to look at getting another midfielder that suits Nuno’s new style of play, but that’s not something that can be achieved in January, it’s a summer job instead. 

It’s better to invest elsewhere ahead of a defining final 15 games, which could determine the club’s distant future.