Scamacca, Haaland, Nunez and the migration of towering strikers to the Premier League

As Gianluca Scamacca, the Italy international striker, underwent his medical at West Ham United on Tuesday, the club’s support staff counted up the big numbers. Scamacca could cost the London club more than all but two signings in their history, at over €40 million ($40.6m) from Sassuolo.

They learned his favoured shirt number is 91 - too large for Premier League rules on what a player can wear on his back. Then they jotted down his height: a towering 1.95m. West Ham have identified Scamacca, 23, as the sort of centre-forward who will trouble the best defenders in England’s top division with his high leap, his long stride and his extensive reach.

The need for a target man striker at West Ham has long been clear. The club’s climb, under David Moyes, from flirting with relegation in 2020 to European contenders - they reached the semi-finals of the Europa League last season, and have finished sixth and seventh in the last two Premier League campaigns - has been in part built around Michail Antonio’s successful evolution as a powerful leader of the forward line.

But Antonio has lacked a strong back-up. Scamacca looked a good fit for that role the longer West Ham scouted him, monitoring his sudden progress at Sassuolo, the upstarts of Serie A, where he scored 16 league goals in 2022-23, earning himself a place in the senior Italy squad.

Young centre-forwards are migrating in numbers to the top of the Premier League this summer, from various leading leagues. Scamacca is poised to join a procession of them. The list starts, first and foremost, with the outsized Erling Haaland, who arrived at Manchester City for around €60m at the outset of the transfer window from the Bundesliga, where he set various records for prolific,