The pleasure of unpicking that performance last night against one of the Premier League’s form teams will fall to pundits far more qualified than me. West Ham came away from St James’ Park with three points and it was great to see the smiles on the faces, to see Lopetegui stay and applaud the away fans ( who, let’s face it, deserve a special ‘campaign medal’ for attending that game and singing from the first minute to the last)- all was more pleasurable simply because it was so unexpected.
Quite what had been said between Lopetegui and Lucas Paquetá we will never know. The Brazilian, dropped by his national team and due to give evidence in his own hearing in December, had before last night been a faded, grey version of his former self. Justifiable calls for him to be dropped were rested by Lopetegui who’d obviously got limited options with Alvarez and Kudus suspended.
The game was on Sky- so widely watched by Hammers fans – so I’ll not need to describe Paquetá’s more energetic performance but observe merely that he grew in stature through the match, as if awakening from a long slumber.
From the start he was ‘present’ more – making tackles, really working to keep the midfield competitive, exhibiting again those cheeky flicks -although one almost led to disaster late on. By no means ‘wonderful’, but here was a Lucas Paquetá working for the team.
No pointless yellow card picked up to send him into a suspension either.
The second goal came from his industry, working to intercept and win back possession in a way that had been missing from his game all season.How West Ham have missed this ‘hardworking’ Paquetá variant.
Now to keep the Brazilian focussed for the rest of this campaign. That’s challenge number one. If Lopetegui can get a tune out of his troubled midfielder, then a tiptoe up the table might not be out of the question.
