Fabrizio Romano has claimed that Manchester City will move on from Lucas Paqueta if they don’t manage to secure a deal for him this week.
The Citizens have been linked with a move for the West Ham United midfielder recently and have already seen a £70m verbal offer knocked back by the east London club.
Now though, one journalist has shared some details on City’s current stance on this particular transfer deal.
Romano says City will not hang around for Paqueta
Speaking in a recent video on his YouTube channel, Romano had this to say on the matter.
He said: “City are still working on the Lucas Paqueta deal. It’s not that easy with West Ham, as always with West Ham, City are still there trying but they will not spend the two weeks until the end of the window working on Paqueta.
“So, the Paqueta deal has to be decided this week for City.
“City will try again, City will bid again and then we will see if they can find a way with West Ham, good, they will proceed for Paqueta because the player wants the move, otherwise they will move on other targets.”
After arriving at the London Stadium last summer in a club-record deal worth £51m, the Brazilian went on to score five goals and deliver seven goals in 39 matches across the Premier League and the Europa Conference League, which the Hammers ultimately won.
The midfielder recently got his second Premier League campaign with the Hammers off to a solid start as he earned himself an overall match rating of 8/10 from SofaScore for his performance in the club’s 1-1 draw against Bournemouth.
In that game, Paqueta made two key passes and won more tackles (8) than any other West Ham player on the day, which shows why he had such a high match rating.
Bearing in mind how City will now be without Kevin De Bruyne for the next few months due to a hamstring injury, this makes it easy to see why the treble winners want to bring in someone like Paqueta as soon as they can.
However, if a suitable deal can’t be struck by the end of the week, it’ll be interesting to see what other targets City may look to sign before the window closes.
