Italy striker Gianluca Scamacca’s West Ham problems have become crystal clear and the devil is in the detail for David Moyes.
West Ham finally ended an 18-month search for a new striker to replace Sebastien Haller when Moyes signed Scamacca for £35m in the summer.
Michail Antonio and Jarrod Bowen had done superbly to take on the goalscoring burden during two years of rapid progress for the Hammers.
But their goals have dried up and it has not been an easy start to life in the Premier League for Scamacca.
The Italian looks like he has the potential to a class act for West Ham. But then so did Haller when the club paid £45m to bring him from Eintracht Frankfurt.
As with Haller, though, supply has been a big issue for Scamacca so far with Moyes being criticised for failing to find a system that gets the best out of the striker.
Many fear Scamacca could end up going the same way as Haller.
There was relief when the forward smashed home a lovely strike in the 2-2 draw with Leeds. But that came as a result of a Leeds mistake rather than good West Ham build-up play and was fired in from outside the box by Scamacca.
Well now Scamacca’s West Ham problems have become crystal clear and the devil is in the detail.
And the fact of the matter is Scamacca stands very little chance of getting the tap-ins Moyes wants from him playing in this West Ham side and system.
Because according to football analysis experts The Other 14, West Ham had the fewest touches in the opposition penalty area of any side outside the “big six” – who incidentally all way surpassed the Hammers’ paltry 11 too.
Brighton and Leicester had the most with 25 – more than double that of West Ham. The next lowest was Brentford with 13.
Is it any wonder that Scamacca is struggling? The team simply does not create proper goalscoring chances for their striker.
We didn’t need stats to tell us that of course, we’ve been seeing it all season with our own eyes. And we have seen the same thing with Haller previously.
The devil is in the detail, though, and Moyes must fix this West Ham system to start getting the best out of Scamacca.
An in-depth analysis by The Athletic earlier this season showed that without Lucas Paqueta in the side, West Ham’s players simply aren’t passing or getting the ball to Scamacca anywhere near enough.
If Moyes wants the Italian to have a chance of scoring more tap-ins, his team must be getting the ball to him in and around the box a lot more often. Eleven touches in the opposition penalty area in one game is simply pathetic.
Football is not rocket science. The key to that is getting to the byline much more often and delivering crosses from there, which drastically increases the percentages of scoring.
West Ham simply do not do that anymore because their full-backs are not good enough and Bowen too often comes inside on his left foot.
Maxwel Cornet, when he eventually returns, will help massively with that issue on the left. The only answer on the other side is to sign a new right-back.