da apostebet： There were murmurs of discontent from West Ham fans when Gianluca Scamacca was named on the bench for the Hammers’ game against AEK Larnaca on Thurday evening.
da jogodeouro： The Italy international has struggled for form and confidence recently and after making his return from injury, the game against the Cypriot minnows would have arguably been the perfect chance to build up his fitness and try and get him on the scoresheet.
However, David Moyes opted for the tried and tested Michail Antonio, despite the Jamaican’s own struggles in front of goal of late, and he would score both goals in the 2-0 win.
Scamacca was left on the bench for the 4-0 defeat against Brighton last weekend and given his cameo in Cyprus last night, it was easy to see why.
How did Scamacca perform vs Larnaca?
As per Sofascore, the former Sassuolo man would earn a shocking 6.3/10 rating for his performance, which was joint with Lucas Paqueta as the worst of any player to feature in the game.
The 24-year-old replaced Antonio with half an hour remaining but failed to make any impact whatsoever during his time on the pitch, contributing no shots, no key passes and no successful dribbles.
Scamacca was signed to be a powerful target man but looked anything but against the Cypriot side, failing to win any of his six ground duels in the game, while he would muster just seven successful passes.
He somehow managed to lose possession on five occasions, despite touching the ball just 16 times in his time on the pitch, which emphasises just how poor the 6 foot 5 attacker was in a game where West Ham were expected to win comfortably.
Since signing from Sassuolo in a £35.5m deal in the summer, he has managed only seven goals in 26 appearances, four of which have come in the Conference League, with fans perhaps concerned that the young forward will follow in the footsteps of a number of strikers who have struggled to make the grade with the Hammers.
Moyes has faced some criticism for the Italian’s lack of game time in recent weeks but his shocking performance on Thursday evening arguably proved the Scottish manager right, and Scamacca will have to massively improve if he wants to establish himself as the main man at the London Stadium.