Finally Luis Guilherme, West Ham’s ‘forgotten’ Brazilian teenager got onto the pitch against Everton. It seems as if the Lopetegui grudge being borne for his technical director’s £20 million spend has finally been exorcised.
It was just ten minutes of game time, but significant in as much as with the tension between our head coach and technical director, Guilherme had seemed to become the whipping boy.
Maybe it speaks volumes about Lopetegui’s desperation for inspiration that he overcame his stubbornness and finally gave ‘Steidten’s pearl’ an outing.
Various reports had claimed that Guilherme hadn’t impressed in training, but in reality as a fleet footed winger in this current West Ham team he is always going to be second choice at best- there is some serious talent ahead of him in he queue.
We know from his cameo that he has pace: He hasn’t lost his skills overnight and se desperately needs more time on the pitch.
Mohammed Kudus still has more games to sit out so I for one am very keen to see Guilherme get more game time: Even in that briefest of glimpses against Everton we saw flashes of speed which is what West Ham have been so lacking for the last couple of seasons.
I felt the tweet X from @WestHamTransfers summed it up very nicely: ‘Luis Guilherme [ has] done more in the last ten minutes than Paqueta has done all season.”
Now we need his head coach to continue to show faith in him and develop his confidence with more minutes on the pitch and more development on the training ground. Apart from anything else, he’s a £20 million asset – so look after him, please Julen.
