Gianluca Scamacca accused of giving up behind the scenes, West Ham United coaches unimpressed
Gianluca Scamacca’s conduct in training isn’t impressing West Ham coaches with the striker claimed to have “chucked it”, according to the Daily Mail.
The Italian has struggled since making his £35.5million switch from Sassuolo last summer, scoring just three goals in the league from 16 appearances, and has already been linked [Sport Mediaset, 9 March] with a move back to Italy.
West Ham manager David Moyes recently admitted that the striker’s “physical data” [13 March] is not at the level required to start games under him, following his recent return from injury, and his travails are now being compared to former Iron flop Sebastien Haller.
The former Hammers star, who joined from Eintracht Frankfurt in 2019, before joining Ajax two years went through similar struggles in East London, and Kieran Gill writing for the Daily Mail [13 March] admits that there are striking comparisons between the two situations.
He wrote: “A few weeks back, a West Ham source mentioned Gianluca Scamacca’s conduct in training wasn’t impressing his coaches. ‘He’s chucked it,’ claimed the contact.
“Scamacca’s situation brings back memories of Sebastien Haller, the striker signed from Eintracht Frankfurt for £45m in 2019 and then sold to Ajax for £20m in 2021.”
“Haller has since spoken about how he and Moyes were ‘trapped together’ because he wasn’t the sort of striker for his sort of system. The fear is West Ham are experiencing deja vu with Scamacca.”
Give him time
In all fairness Gill’s assessment is worryingly accurate, as Haller certainly was accused of going through similar fitness and attitude issues during his spell at the London Stadium.
Moyes regularly made up excuses as to his absence and poor form to paper over the issues that actually meant the player did not ultimately fit his style. Scamacca’s situation right now certainly brings some sort of “deja vu”.
However, fans must remember that Scamacca is still learning at 24 and just because things didn’t work out for Haller, who has gone on to far more success since leaving West Ham, doesn’t mean they can’t for the Italian.
The player clearly needs time to adjust to the club’s style of play, the different environment in England and the testing rigours of the Premier League.
In most cases, players who join from abroad need a year or more to acclimatise properly to the English top-flight which means Scamacca must be given some grace and allowed more time to come good. The judgements right now aren’t going to help.