January 2019 it became official, A.C.Milan purchased Lucas Paqueta from Brazilian club Flamengo for a fee of 38.4M (souce: transfermarkt) making him one of the most expensive players in the clubs transfer history. And he started off in style flicks, tricks and defends left in splits Paqueta was “dancing” his way around defenders and initial fears of his compatibility to Italian Serie A and its demanding nature were quelled. However once Gattuso left and Milan appointed Giampaolo things started going awry. Asked as to what Giampaolo thinks of Paqueta Giampaolo answered “He needs to be less Brazilian” which surprised many. Paqueta, however, took a cheeky dig at Giampaolo on his Instagram saying he knows no other way. However fast forward to September 2020, Paqueta is on the cusp of leaving to Lyon whilst being labelled Milan’s most expensive flop.
His stats for the season? Not a single goal registered for the season and only 1 assist recorded for the 1,199 minutes played in all season.
We take a look at 4 reasons why Paqueta could not take off in Milan
- Lack of Pace and physical stature: A very important feature for all modern attacking players is to be fast both on and off the ball. The modern game has involved so much that the overall pace has increased in teams including center-backs and paqueta is not up to the paces in this horse race. A lack of speed and physicality means that his versatility is also affected. A couple of experiments by Pioli to try paqueta on the wings failed miserably as the likes of Juventus targeted him by outnumbering him and Paqueta was too slow to track back in-case he lost his man and the ball had progressed. With Milan deploying a high press high work rate high pace style of football it is no surprise to see even Saelemaekers start ahead of the Brazilian player in the order because Paqueta does not possess the physical aspects that Pioli demands with his style
- Tries to overcomplicate things: Maybe owing to naivety Paqueta often overcomplicates the play when he is on the ball. With Milan employing a high press, players are often required to win the ball back quickly and pass the ball forward to try and catch opposition defenders out of position. This requires the ball to be released quickly but Paqueta in his stride tries to dribble more defenders than he can take on and often is cornered by defenders and he loses the ball. Opposition teams found this out and tried. This made him a very predictable target and opposition managers started targeting him to prevent the ball being progressed.
- Attitude Issues?: Now this is purely speculative but there were various rumors from reliable sources like Vito Angele and Milannews that Pioli got tired of his attitude in training with the player not showing enough in training to fight for a spot in the team. It even propped Pioli to publically admit paqueta is out of his project. Once again let me reiterate, this is purely speculative and based on rumour, since we fans cannot know what happens behind the scenes but contextual clues such as pioli’s statement and rumours make it look like there may have been attitude issues.
- New Language, Culture: Often moving out of your own country to a new place with a different language and different culture can be a daunting task for a player. And with Leonardo leaving Milan at the end of the 18/19 season paqueta did not have anybody senior to help him settle into the squad and into the locality. It may have played a factor into unsettling the player where he was asked to be excluded from playing a match due to depression.
Conclusion
A transfer to Lyon seems the best solution for Milan, paqueta and Lyon. Milan for whom paqueta does not fit into the project wanted to sell him and re-allocate the money for more burning issues such as center back and right wing. For Lyon whose sporting director is club legend and fellow Brazilian is looking to form a Brazilian core at the club with Thiago Mendes, Guimares and now Paqueta. And for paqueta moving to a club that may suit his style of play and has more Brazilians for him to be-friend
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