Gianluca Scamacca started to repay his manager’s faith in him by kick-starting West Ham’s demolition job last night.
West Ham beat AEK Larnaca comfortably in the Europa Conference League, but the relief on the Italy striker’s face after he shot through goalkeeper Kenan Piric to open the scoring on 21 minutes said everything.
Despite weak opposition, Scamacca linked play well, found the net and might have given David Moyes a selection dilemma to ponder over the international break.
Larnaca have never even won the Cypriot title, so to have overturned the 2-0 first-leg deficit here would have marked one of the great European comebacks.
But this rout keeps alive West Ham’s hopes of a first major trophy in 42 years — and also keeps Moyes in a job. If they had gone out, all they would be playing for is Premier League survival.
Jarrod Bowen has played a lot lately without hitting anything like the heights of last season, and on the day Gareth Southgate left him out of the England squad, Moyes resisted the urge to rest him and hoped the lower calibre of opposition might allow him to play his way into form. So it proved.
First, Bowen swept home the rebound after Scamacca had forced a save. Then, two minutes later, he glanced a sublime header over the goalkeeper to become West Ham’s highest-ever scorer in Europe.
Moyes’s choice to call on 18-year-old Divin Mubama for the final 36 minutes also paid off. The forward had only played 92 minutes of senior football before, but seized his opportunity by scoring his first senior goal.
With Lazio and Villareal knocked out last night, West Ham are now the bookies’ favourites. “You just never know,” Moyes said. “I hope we can keep the journey going.”
