West Ham travel to Aston Villa in the Premier League today and David Moyes gives Gianluca Scamacca a first Premier League start.
Scamacca joined from Serie A side Sassuolo in a £30.5million deal earlier this summer and has scored two goals in as many starts in Europa Conference League qualifying.
West Ham have failed to find the net in their opening three matches and the Italian has now been given the nod from the start.
“He has been knocking on the door for a while,” Moyes said earlier in the week. “It’s not just his fitness, getting him ready, it’s getting him ready for Premier League football. It’s a big change.
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“We’ve had to try and look at him and see where we think the right games are to play him at the moment, when the right opportunity comes around.
“Certainly, we feel as if we’ve got someone we’re looking forward to working with for a long time so we don’t need to rush him. But is he getting ready? Yes, he’s getting much closer to fitness now.”
Emerson Palmieri makes his starts for the Hammers, while Ben Johnson is preferred to Vladimir Coufal.
Maxwel Cornet, a new arrival from Burnley, has also impressed, with assists in each of the two legs of the Conference League win over Viborg, but has to settle for a place on the bench.
Declan Rice is fresh having been suspended for the trip to Denmark, while Angelo Ogbonna is among the substitutes, getting closer to a Premier League return having completed his first 90 minutes since suffering an ACL injury last November.
West Ham XI: Fabianski, Johnson, Zouma, Kehrer, Cresswell, Emerson, Rice, Soucek, Fornals, Bowen, Scamacca
Subs: Areola, Coufal, Ogbonna, Downes, Coventry, Lanzini, Benrahma, Cornet, Antonio
