West Ham United boss David Moyes still feels the best is yet to come from striker Gianluca Scamacca following his £30.5million move from Sassuolo in the summer.
The Italian international striker is still working towards full fitness after joining the Hammers off the back of a pre-season where he went a long period without an appearance in between the end of last season and moving to east London.
Scamacca has started in all four of the Hammers’ games in the Europa Conference League so far this season but has only featured once from the off in six Premier League so far, missing the defeat to Chelsea through illness.
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However, Scamacca has scored in three of his four Europa Conference League starts and is the club’s joint-top scorer this term in all competitions alongside Michail Antonio, despite playing in just 148 Premier League minutes.
His latest goal for the club, a thunderous strike from outside of the penalty area during Thursday’s 3-2 win over Silkeborg in Denmark, was the pick of the bunch so far, turning quick after receiving Maxwel Cornet’s pass before firing into the roof of the net from just outside the penalty area.
Moyes was pleased to see Scamacca score from range and knows he has long shots in locker, but has joked he has also seen plenty miss the target in training.
“He has [got that in his locker], but we’ve seen a few fly over the bar as well though, so they’re not all going in,” Moyes joked. “I think he’s got a lot of attributes which we want to try and bring out of him.
“He’s a 23 year old from Italy and coming from the league there and a new start, it is really difficult to maybe explain to everybody the jump and how difficult and the time that can take.”
A lot of Premier League clubs have spent big in acquiring new forwards this summer, including the Hammers on Scamacca and Liverpool splashing out on Darwin Nunez from Benfica, as well as the likes of Alexander Isak, Taiwo Awoniyi and Sasa Kalajdzic joining Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest and Wolverhampton Wanderers in big money arrivals to the Premier League respectively.
Most new strikers to the league are still finding their feet, but new Manchester City forward Erling Haaland is already starring with ten and taking very little time to settle. With ten league goals from six games so far and an average of a league goal every 48.5 minutes, the Norwegian was named as the Premier League player of the month for August and already has four more league goals than any other player in the league and seven more than the whole of Moyes’ squad.
But the Scottish boss has stressed the need to give Scamacca time and explained how while he and others are still learning and adjusting to Premier League life, Haaland is proving to be a rare exception.
"You look at centre forwards all over, if you are asking me at the moment, [Erling] Haaland has made an unbelievable impression on Man City and football in general at the moment,” Moyes explained.
“I don’t know if there are too many new strikers have come into the country and turned out like Haaland. It takes time, especially for centre forwards to then feel their worth and the team knowing exactly how to use them.
"We have to do that with Gianluca and truthfully, I think it was touch and go whether I played him (against Silkeborg) because I wasn’t quite sure if he was over his illness completely and we’ve been giving him little bits of games. I’m glad I did because we’re still trying to build him up and even at this moment in time, I think we are. He’ll play for us a lot, but he is still building up to the levels.”
While Moyes and people across the Premier League have been wowed by Haaland’s instant impact that has seen him already notch 13 times in eight appearances for City across the Premier League and Champions League, Moyes still feels as if Haaland is still working on his own game.
Haaland recently said after scoring against former side Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League that he would happily only touch the ball five times in a game if it meant he scored five goals, a quote that Moyes felt was interesting.
“I think if you look at it slightly differently and you took Haaland out of the equation, you might have said the new ones are still taking time to settle in,” added Moyes. “This is the thing that can happen and we’ve been quite a consistent side. We have had a pretty consistent group of 13/14 players over the last couple of years, to then bring in four or five others to join the squad can be a bit more difficult.
“I do think Haaland has set the bar really high for all of the strikers. In parts of Haaland’s game, you might say that. I saw a great quote from Haaland saying ‘give me five touches and I’ll score give goals and I’ll be happy with that.’ I thought it was a really interesting quote. For him, maybe he is still evolving into how the team play and those parts of the games, but he’s certainly not disappointing in that aspect, that is for sure.”
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