West Ham United's striker hunt in recent years has led them down some dark alleys. They’ve desperately spent mega-money on promising strikers but have been regularly disappointed on multiple occasions. Instead they’ve relied on converted forward Michail Antonio to put them on his broad shoulders and carry them through both domestic and European competitions.
Their recent list of strikers reads like a Premier League lost and found. Albian Ajeti. Lucas Perez. Jordan Hugill. Simone Zaza. Jonathan Calleri. Ashley Fletcher. Emmanuel Emenike. Need I go on?
Sebastien Haller was meant to be the solution to all their problems when he was bought for a club record £42m. But despite clearly being a goalscoring sensation on the continent, he never got going in East London and was sold to Ajax at a £15m loss.
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So when West Ham splashed out a further £32m this summer on Gianluca Scamacca, they must have been fearing the worst. Instead, the Italian international has actually lived up to his price tag and settled in well at the London Stadium. Six goals in 12 appearances in all competitions is a good start, but he now has two in his last two Premier League games and looks like the man West Ham have been waiting for.
Antonio has been amazing for the Hammers, and scored off the bench again this weekend, but he has needed support for so long. Given his versatility and West Ham’s attacking threat, they will share minutes this term while they could feasibly compliment each other too.
His manager David Moyes has been suitably impressed with his new signing and told Match of the Day: "It shows he can score different goals - he had two great chances with his head - and he may have taken the hardest of them all.
"It was a deft finish. Sometimes when you are possibly offside, centre-forwards don't often go and finish the job off, but he did.
"What Gianluca is showing is that he's not a one-trick pony when it comes to goalscoring."
"He's a young striker coming into this country who we spent a lot of money on - although not as much as some teams have spent - who is doing really well and will get better.”
It’s still early days, but the early signs are incredibly promising. Given he is trusted by managers at club and international level at the age of 23, it is clear he possesses huge talent. The goals he has scored will only add to his confidence and now it looks like he is first choice.
He may not wear nine on his back, but he is the number nine West Ham have been missing. In the Gold/Sullivan era, they’ve now bought 51 forwards for a combined fee of £290m. That list features the likes of Carlton Cole, Diafra Sahko, Enner Valencia, Andy Carroll, Javier Hernandez and Marko Arnautovic as well as the aforementioned stinkers.
But aside from current players Jarrod Bowen and Antonio, none of them have taken the Premier League by storm. But now Scamacca has arrived to join the party and shoulder the goalscoring responsibility. This weekend, he became just the ninth West Ham player to score in his first two home Premier League starts for the club but the first to do so at London Stadium, a ground they moved into in 2016.
Despite Moyes’ magnificence and the European adventure last term, these problems and lack of depth have held West Ham back from consistently going deep into cup competitions. Now they’ve found an Italian stallion to ease their woes, and he goes by the name of Scamacca.
