Lucas Paqueta and Crysencio Summerville have been singled out for their lack of contributions to the West Ham cause in increasingly desperate times.

West Ham were beaten 1-0 by Fulham on Saturday afternoon to leave them five points adrift of Nottingham Forest above them in 17th.

Ollie Scarles was in tears as he apologised to West Ham fans at full time after his error led to the late winner for Raul Jimenez.

But it is the attacking duo of Paqueta and Summerville that drew the ire of former Millwall and Chelsea striker Tony Cascarino.

Cascarino infuriated by Paqueta and Summerville fringe play

Both started the game but couldn’t make the difference which Cascarino believes both have the talent to do on a much more regular basis.

Speaking live on talkSPORT he said: “Paqueta drives me crazy because when Man City were after him and big clubs and he had all this interest in him [it was fine].

“He plays out on the right yesterday and he was on the fringes of the game, and someone so gifted you know he can change the game in a moment, he drives me crazy.

“And then I look at sometimes Summerville, he can very much be, likewise, a fringe player. When he’s on he’s really good.

“And that in their team is a problem. They need players who are consistent, stepping up to the plate on a regular basis. So it’s a tough one there. They’re in the mire, they’re absolutely in the mire.

“I think they’ve got Brighton at home on Tuesday, wow, if they go down there [and lose], the gap, they could be eight to ten points behind by mid-January.”

West Ham players think they are going down

Paqueta surely needs to leave West Ham sooner or later amid his well-documented unhappiness at the spot-fixing investigation from the FA that closed without proving guilt earlier this year.

The flair that got him close to a big-money Man City move that collapsed when the allegations emerged isn’t often on display any more, and it is an indictment of the Hammers squad that he is still relied upon as a key player when his mind doesn’t appear to be in the right place.

Paqueta’s red card in the Liverpool defeat felt like the final nail in the coffin for him in an Irons shirt, at least for the short-term, but the Brazilian is still named in the starting XI by Nuno Espirito Santo.

For his part, Summerville still feels like a signing that is expected to come good somewhere down the line, 18 months on from arriving at the London Stadium as the Championship Player of the Year at Leeds.

The fact that the Dutchman, along with exit-linked Luis Guilherme, and AC Milan-loanee Niclas Fullkrug, have all failed to make a major impact proves how disappointing the summer 2024 transfer window has turned out, and is playing a major role in the current struggles.

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