Former Liverpool and England midfielder Danny Murphy has made an exciting prediction over West Ham United duo Lucas Paqueta and Gianluca Scamacca after both starred in the Hammers’ 3-1 win over Fulham on Sunday.
The pair of summer acquisitions, from Olympique Lyonnais and Sassuolo respectively, have shown to be forming an impressive partnership recently. On Thursday night at Anderlecht, the duo came off the West Ham bench and combined for Scamacca’s winner in the Europa Conference League in Brussels.
On Sunday, both started together for only the second time in West Ham colours. Paqueta created a number of chances for Scamacca in the game against Fulham including Scamacca’s goal to make it 2-1 shortly after the hour mark, the Italian’s third goal in as many games.
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Analysing West Ham’s win over Fulham on BBC’s Match of the Day 2, Murphy, whose career saw him play for Liverpool, Fulham and England, was very impressed by both Paqueta and Scamacca during the London derby.
“It was a competitive game, I thought Fulham contributed to it really well, especially in the first half,” said Murphy. I thought they started the game tremendously well, without (Aleksandar) Mitrovic as well, lots of promising signs and went a goal up.
“The performance of Paqueta and Scamacca playing together, Paqueta especially, his best game in a West Ham shirt. He was superb. He finds these spaces so well, that’s what great players do, creative players. He’s got great physicality to do the defensive work, which David Moyes likes. Every time he gets space, he’s looking for Scamacca, who led the line really, really well. He’s got six goals this season already, starting to become a bit of a fans hero.
“Look at the space again, Paqueta, he has got an awareness of where his centre forward is, where his mate is. These two love playing together, a great ball and nearly a good finish and that link up is growing and the fans are going to love watching these two play together. You can already see it starting to gel. This, taking the ball in dangerous areas, Paqueta, deep in his own half, trying to make an impact on the game when they’re not at it. Great pass out wide left, sets the attack up and if you’ve got a man like Scamacca in the middle of the goals, you are going to put balls in and he should score to be honest and he’s in the right place again at the right time.
“This one, I really like, (Declan) Rice knows the awareness of the player’s quality just ahead of him, he’s always going to be looking to pop it into him. He’s had a look, he knows he’s going to be in there, fires it through the line and what does he do, takes it on the half turn like great players do, look at that space again, too late to get into him. A clever little pass into Scamacca and a delicate finish and you can see the elation. It was a really good performance from those two, Paqueta especially.”
Murphy then went on to discuss the form of Italian summer signing Scamacca, who has scored six goals in all competitions this season, including four in five games in the Europa Conference League and each of his last two starts in the Premier League.
The former Liverpool and England midfielder thinks that Scamacca’s arrival could prove to be a very shrewd signing for David Moyes’ side, with his quality of scoring various types of goals, as well as his hold-up play.
“He’s a centre forward that has all of the attributes you need to do both parts,” added Murphy. “For a big fella, he can get in there and head it and get on the end of crosses but he can link, he can go in and he doesn’t mind going in and linking play around corners.
“I think that could be a shrewd signing for West Ham and they can now bring on (Michail) Antonio to give them an extra lease of life and for them to stay in the game.”
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