Gianluca Scamacca’s resurgence in Serie A would attract the attention of Premier League clubs – if they could forget his time at West Ham.
That’s the opinion of European football expert Andy Brassell, who believes there is a lack of centre-forwards at the Italian’s level.
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Much was expected of the 22-time Italy international when he arrived at the London Stadium from Sassuolo for £35.5 million in 2022.
However, in his only season with the Hammers, Scamacca only scored eight goals in 27 appearances.
Only three of those goals came in the Premier League, while he missed the club’s Conference League final victory due to injury.
West Ham suffered a huge blow to allow Scamacca to return to his home country to join Atalanta in 2023, where the striker has since returned to form.
The 27-year-old has already scored nine goals and three assists across all competitions this season, with two-thirds of his goals coming in Serie A.
Scamacca also struck in Atalanta’s Champions League win over Chelsea in December, which would normally have caused quite a stir.
Still, European football expert Brassell believes his stay at West Ham will hurt his chances of a big-money return to England.
“Atalanta looked much better from below [coach Raffaele] Palladino recently,” Brassell said on the Trans Europe Express podcast. “Of course they beat Chelsea towards the end of the knockout rounds to get into this position.”
“They have something that is a rare commodity in European football at the moment: an old-fashioned centre-forward who looks really good,” Brassell continued.
“You know what? If he hadn’t already failed at West Ham, people would look at Gianluca Scamacca and the way he’s played in the last few months and think: ‘Yeah, some Premier League club will pick him up.'”
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Problems with the West Ham striker
Scamacca is far from the first struggling West Ham striker to have his fortunes reversed since leaving the club.
Sebastian Haller became the Champions League’s top scorer despite only scoring 10 goals in 48 Premier League games for the Irons.
Likewise, Niklas Fulkrug moved to West Ham as a European finalist with Borussia Dortmund, but only scored three goals in 27 games.
His replacement, Pablo Felipe, a January signing, is now out through injury having failed to score a Premier League goal in his five games in London.
On Scamacca, Brassell told The Pitch Prospect.com: “I think people would judge him less harshly if he hadn’t suffered that cruciate ligament injury relatively soon after he moved to Atalanta, because that led to him sort of leaving West Ham and then kind of falling out of the spotlight.”
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“But the way he’s played since he’s come back, the way he’s played in the first half of the season, he’s been really good. He’s looked dangerous.”
“Everything he does in the game, fighting defenders and holding up the ball, I look at it and think, if you didn’t know he played at West Ham and just didn’t know who he was; if he was just some random player you’d think, yeah, this guy would do a great job in the Premier League, if you had no idea of the history at all.”
“Scamacca is not just about his ability to score goals consistently and he has done a decent job so far this season.”
“It’s everything else he does in the game. He makes his teammates’ lives a lot easier and there are so few center forwards at this level in the game at the moment.”
“Without his age, his injury history and the fact that he fell flat on his face at least part of the time in the Premier League, people would look at him in a completely different light.”
“He’s a problem.”