West Ham boss David Moyes has rejected comparisons between strikers Gianluca Scamacca and Marko Arnautovic but hailed both.
Arnautovic became a massive fan favourite at West Ham under Moyes having been converted from an inconsistent winger to one of the most feared strikers in the Premier League.
Moyes would go on to be replaced by Manuel Pellegrini. And Arnautovic sullied his reputation with West Ham fans by demanding a mega money move to China.
Arnautovic has since returned to Europe and now plays in the Scamacca’s homeland with Bologna.
West Ham tried to replace him with £45m forward Sebastien Haller but the move did not work out.
Instead Moyes returned and was back to converting inconsistent wingers into strikers again, this time with Michail Antonio.
West Ham finally ended an 18-month long wait for a bona fide striker when Moyes signed £35m Italian Scamacca in the summer.
Scamacca has quickly endeared himself with the West Ham faithful.
Big, powerful, skilful, quick, covered in tattoos and possessing a cannon of a shot. That could just as easily be a description of either Scamacca or Arnautovic.
So it is easy to see why some, in the press at least, have made comparisons between the new and former West Ham forwards.
But West Ham boss Moyes rejects comparisons between Scamacca and Arnautovic but hailed both, saying they are very different characters.
“Erm, I don’t think you’ll get many Marko’s,” Moyes said with a puff of his cheeks when asked whether Scamacca reminds him of Arnautovic.
“Marko was a one-off, you know what I mean!?
“Marko was a great guy, I really got on well with Marko and I liked him a lot because he sort of challenged me and I sort of challenged him back and he stood up to it and wanted to show me that all the things I didn’t think he could do, he could do. And he went on to do them really well and has continued to do them well.
“Gianluca’s interesting because he’s a really good lad, really nice lad and he’s got some great traits as a centre forward, lots of really good hold-up play, stature, can score with his head, got good feet, close control he can do it, phwoar he’s got a blooming cannon in his right foot. So he’s got an awful lot of traits where you go ‘wow’.
“Now there’s a lot of things which I think he can do better (too). I think he needs to get in the box quicker, I think sometimes he’s laboured outside (the box) – I think that’s partly because he’s nearly hoping he gets it outside because he’s got a boom of a right foot.
“His movement is good (but) there’s bit which I think he could look at and we’re going to try and show him some stuff which we maybe think could help him. He’s a really good character but I keep saying this, to find really good, young centre forwards nowadays, it is really hard…
“We’re hoping that he’s going to get better. The big thing about him is he’s really all ears, everything at the moment is exciting to him in the Premier League and new, which we hope he’ll get better with.”
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