West Ham United's Gianluca Scamacca celebrates scoring their second goal against Fulham
Sky Sports presenter Joe Thomlinson has slammed David Moyes for the way he’s failing to get the best out of West Ham striker Gianluca Scamacca.
The Lowdown: West Ham continue to struggle
The Hammers have been brought crashing back down to earth this season after back-to-back European finishes as they’re now engulfed in a relegation scrap.
West Ham currently sit above the relegation zone by goal difference with just 12 games left to play, with clashes against five of the current top six still to come, which will almost certainly have alarm bells ringing in and around the fanbase.
What will have left the West Ham faithful very annoyed is that when they were chasing three points on Sunday, Moyes opted against throwing on £35.5m striker Scamacca, despite the Hammers being desperate for a goal.
The Latest: Moyes unable to get the best out of Scamacca
It’s now the second big-money striker that has seemingly flopped under Moyes after Sebastien Haller – albeit brought to the club by Manuel Pellegrini – failed to impress at the London Stadium, which is something Thomlinson alluded to on the Football Daily YouTube channel.
He said: “When you add the context of £180m spent in the summer and big names arriving at the club ie Scamacca and Paqueta, it becomes problematic when Scamacca is an unused sub in a 1-1 draw [against] Villa where you need points because you’re in a relegation battle and Maxwel Cornet comes on up front ahead of you.
“I know Cornet was also a summer arrival, but I just think his usage of Scamacca is becoming extremely troublesome, and his quotes after the game here, saying ‘his physical data has got to be much better than it is’.
“That’s fine, but I remember a similar narrative developing with Seb Haller when he was there – that he didn’t do the runs into the channels that he wanted and we’ve seen what Seb Haller has been able to achieve subsequently to leaving West Ham and what he managed to at Ajax and [his] goalscoring rate.
“Just 11 starts in the Premier League for the Italian. That’s pretty underwhelming given that he was £35m, the big name coming in.
“Three goals. It’s just very, very underwhelming.”
The Verdict: Scamacca is yet to justify big price tag
It has certainly been a disastrous debut season in England for Scamacca, who tore up Serie A last campaign with 16 goals to his name, with his performances seeing West Ham fork out a huge amount of money for his services.
However, he just hasn’t been able to step up to the level of the Premier League, or perhaps Moyes hasn’t been able to get a tune out of the big Italian, as he can’t put up the physical data and numbers required.
If that’s the reason for Scamacca’s lack of form and starts in the Premier League, Moyes and the West Ham scouting team need to be looking at themselves if they didn’t see this potential flaw in Scamacca’s game displaying itself prior to paying so much money for him last summer.
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