West Ham: Michail Antonio says Gianluca Scamacca is not enough of a ‘fighter’ to succeed under David Moyes | OneFootball

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ichail Antonio believes his West Ham team-mate Gianluca Scamacca is not enough of a “fighter” to succeed under David Moyes.

Scamacca was signed from Sassuolo last summer in a £30.5million deal, in part to provide competition for Antonio, who had led the Hammers line alone for much of the previous season, but has struggled to adapt to English football.

There were encouraging periods in the early part of the campaign, when Scamacca scored four times across Europa Conference League qualifying and the group stage, as well as in back-to-back Premier League wins over Fulham and Wolves. However, the Italian would find the net just once more in the League all season before having his campaign curtailed by a knee problem which eventually required surgery.

“He’s a quality player,” Antonio said during an appearance on the Filthy Fellas podcast. “The problem is, he can’t play the way the gaffer plays. He needs a different type of manager to play his type of football, [one who can] have other players play off him and stuff like that.

“You can see it, when the ball comes into him it sticks and he’s tidy. But the way David Moyes plays, if you’re up front you’re dealing with scraps and you’ve got to be more of a fighter, that’s not him.”

The 24-year-old is expected to be fit in time to start pre-season, although there is concern that the striker could be tempted by a swift return to Serie A this summer.

Antonio, meanwhile, said Hammers captain Declan Rice is every bit as good as Manchester City’s title-winning midfielder Rodri. “What has Rodri got that Declan hasn’t?” he said.