David Moyes has defended his early Gianluca Scamacca substitution as West Ham fans question the Hammers boss again.
West Ham fans have been very vocal on the Scamacca situation at West Ham.
There has been a sense of deja vu around the Italian and ex Hammers striker Sebastien Haller – the man Scamacca was brought in to replace after an 18-month search.
Scamacca’s debut season with West Ham has not worked out for him or the club thus far following his £35m move from Sassuolo.
The Italian had been an unused substitute in West Ham’s last four Premier League games including the 1-1 draw at home with Aston Villa on Sunday.
Moyes has publicly criticised the striker’s output in training leading to talk of a falling out between the pair.
In his pre-match press conference, Moyes moved to shutdown claims of a rift with Scamacca.
A picture emerged after the game showing Scamcca sat on the floor and looking disconsolate. And it sparked an angry reaction from supporters towards Moyes with the hashtag #FreeScamacca trending on Twitter for a time.
He was “freed” last night as Moyes handed the 6ft 5in star a start in the Europa Conference League last 16 second leg clash with AEK Larnaca.
And he got a goal to make it eight in 16 starts for West Ham as the Hammers cruised into the quarter-finals with a 6-0 aggregate victory.
But supporters and commentators were somewhat surprised when Scamacca was withdrawn after just 55 minutes.
Fans criticised Moyes on social media feeling it was the perfect opportunity for the forward to get some much-needed game time and potentially a couple more goals to do his confidence the world of good.
With West Ham having 17 days off now, supporters pointed out Scamacca has plenty of time to recover.
But Moyes defended his early Gianluca Scamacca substitution as West Ham fans question the boss.
Speaking on BT Sport after the game, the Scot admitted he could have left Scamacca on longer.
But he said substitution rules meant he had to bring him off at the same time as the other changes.
“Look in the end strikers need their goals don’t they, it gives them their confidence,” Moyes told BT Sport.
“He done a lot of good things tonight and I’m pleased for him…
“Probably about 60 (minutes) was the plan (for the substitutions) really. But when we got the goals I thought ‘well, why wait any longer, don’t take any chances with injuries’ particularly to (Lucas) Paqueta and certainly to Jarrod Bowen.
“I mean we could have kept Gianluca on longer but it worked out in case we were making more subs during the game, we only had three chances to do it so we decided to make them all in one go.”
Read: Everything West Ham fans need to know about Friday’s double header UEFA draw.
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