West Ham United manager David Moyes has said the physical data of striker Gianluca Scamacca must improve after his side’s 1-1 draw with Aston Villa.
The £30.5million signing from Sassuolo in the summer has struggled for minutes since returning from a knee injury last month and in the Hammers’ draw with Villa, Moyes opted to bring on winger Maxwel Cornet up front instead of Scamacca when taking Danny Ings off with five minutes to go in search of a late winner.
Scamacca did not come on at all but the decision led to plenty of fans questioning why Cornet was bought on over Scamacca for Ings.
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Explaining the decision, Moyes said that Scamacca’s recent physical data has not matched the heights from earlier this season and it must improve for him to win his place in the side back.
“His link up play is very good, he enjoys play,” said Moyes. “We know that his physical data has got to be much better than it is but even today, Maxi Cornet, the thought was he could get in behind them and let’s be fair, we probably did and we nearly did three or four other times.
"Even Maxi had a couple of half chances, whether he was onside or offside. We saw Maxi doing that more than Gianluca.
“Gianluca has got to get himself back, as a manager, no manager wants to put out a bad team, you want to put out the players who you think are going to win for you, so you are always looking to put your best team out.”
While criticising Scamacca’s recent physical output, Moyes did say that he had not questioned Scamacca’s recent application.
Moyes admits he likes a lot of Scamacca’s technical play, but wants to see more of it after a recent drop of in performances.
“No, I think his application is there, I think we just want the output to be bigger and more, that’s one of things we are looking for more,” added Moyes.
“The general part of his play, his hold up play, we like him for it, he’s really really good at it and we’ve not seen it as much in the work we’ve been doing.”
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