Journalist Sam Tighe has sent David Moyes a warning at West Ham United following the signing of Gianluca Scamacca as their new striker.
Tighe was speaking on the Ranks FC YouTube channel about what the Hammers should expect from their Italian goalscorer and how they can get the best from him.
The Hammers splashed £30m to bring in the striker this summer and that will naturally bring an expectation from the West Ham fans for him to almost instantly provide goals.
But there are question marks over his ability to hold up the ball and create opportunities for himself, with WhoScored noting this as one of the 23-year-old’s weaknesses.
Discussing how West Ham can set out on Sunday to get the best out of Scamacca, presenter Jack Collins said: “It does feel like if Moyes wants his strikers to do what Antonio does, to do what Bowen does and Scamacca is there, you need to change this system if you’re going to make it work, because you cannot play him as a single man up top if you’re going to make him run the channels because that’s just not his game.”
Tighe agreed, replying: “Yeah, and it will make him a flop, because there’s high expectation on him. It’s £30-35m, it’s a lot of money and West Ham have this terrible record was strikers anyway.”
TIF Thoughts on Tighe’s comments…
This is an interesting comment from Tighe in suggesting Moyes will need to essentially play Scamacca as their target man with little more than scoring goals as his focus.
Jarrod Bowen carried a lot of pressure on his shoulders last term, with 24 goal involvements in the Premier League campaign alone as the likes of Michail Antonio struggled to find his form in the season’s latter stages.
However, if Scamacca is used purely with finding himself in the box as the focus, there will also be less pressure on the likes of Bowen to provide goals from out wide with the Italian needing quality service.