Topics: Lucas Paqueta, Manchester City, West Ham, English Premier League
The Cityzens have already made contact with the player's Premier League employers but have a couple of hurdles to overcome.

Manchester City's recent Community Shield defeat to Arsenal highlighted the club's need for reinforcements. While the addition of Mateo Kovacic and Josko Gvardiol has been great, the Cityzens are yet to fill the void left by Ilkay Gundogan's departure to Barcelona.

As a result, Guardiola's side have identified one Premier League ace as the ideal man to bolster their team. That player is none other than Lucas Paqueta, the West Ham attacking midfielder who remains highly rated irrespective of his inconsistent debut season.

As revealed by Brazilian news outlet Globo, the treble winners reached out to the Hammers over the Selecao ace. The likes of Fabrizio Romano and the Athletic later corroborated this story, thus adding more weight to the report.

While Paqueta isn't a like-for-like replacement for Gundogan, the former Lyon ace can add quality in the final third from midfield, which is something that made Ilkay extremely valuable, especially during the business end of the season. However, the Premier League champions have run into a few roadblocks.

First of all, Manchester City were exploring a deal in the region of £70M (roughly $90M). However, that figure will not be accepted. The player has a £85M (approximately $108M) release clause but that does not come into effect until next summer. 

Furthermore, Sky Sports report that the Hammers will not sell even if City were to match his release clause as they won't have enough time to sign a replacement ahead of the 2023-24 Premier League season, which kicks off this Friday.

Fortunately for the Cityzens, the player favors a move to the Etihad Stadium, and for obvious reasons. Despite West Ham's UEFA Europa Conference League success last term, the future looks bleak for David Moyes' side following the departure of Declan Rice to Arsenal.

The London club have agreed deals for James Ward-Prowse and Manchester United center-back Harry Maguire but many predict another relegation battle on the horizon for West Ham.

Manchester City, on the other hand, recently won the treble and are one of the favorites — if not the favorites — for the Premier League and UEFA Champions League titles. While the club recently lost to Arsenal in the Community Shield, it was only due to a deflected equalizer deep into added time — though, the Gunners were the better team in the eyes of many.

Guardiola would ideally want a winger as well before the season starts following the exit of Riyad Mahrez, with Michael Olise and Jeremy Doku being targetted. However, City kick off their Premier League title defense this Friday away to Burnley live on USA Network and Universo, and will thus have to make do with what they got for the start of the campaign.