(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Michail Antoinio had one of those afternoon where you can’t bear to see him in an opposition shirt as has been regularly rumoured this season.
He appeared in the second half against United and looked nailed on to change the game with an action packed high energy performance.
He was an effort hit the bar and a header brilliantly finger tipped away by David De Gea. It was a great cameo performance and I want to believe he will be around next season.
At his best he can be unplayable and incredibly difficult to knock off the ball as he storms forward. Today it was clear his entry scared a very inexperienced back line half t0 death.
Had there been any justice, or more importantly, a decent striker up front , it could have all been so very different and at the end Antonio like the rest of us was moaning about what might have been.
Talking to the official site he said: “I can’t believe [we lost]. The team performance was unbelievable. I think in the first half we kept possession well, and with the football we were playing we did everything but score a goal.
“They had a pen to give them the lead, we scored a decent goal to get back in it before a second pen. It’s just one of those days where we did everything we could, but just didn’t get the point or three.
“I can’t believe neither of mine went in. Maybe for the header, I could have got a better connection to put it straight into the net instead of heading it down, but you want to keep it down.
“I still think it should have gone in! De Gea is definitely a cat isn’t he!
“We’ve come here and shown what we can do, it’s just a shame we didn’t get the three points. It shows we’ve got the fight and we’ll keep pushing until the end of the season.”
We were robbed by a blind linesman and a stupid ref. Bias decisions that linesman was awful how is he making decisions in the PL should never be given another game. Well played lads thought you played well. COYI ⚒
Yesterday showed what a useful PL player Antonio can be. I can’t believe there is talk of moving him on. The game demonstrated we are a good team in an open match against a team who give us room to play; when it’s a battle we don’t look anything like as good.
On another point, we didn’t seem to have enough options for a forward ball on too many occasions, including free kicks and throw-ins – we regularly go backwards or lose the ball tamely – and that was in an open game against a team who were not playing at 100%. Not enough movement up top, especially when Hernandez is playing? Any thoughts from anyone?
Masuaku looked excellent, too (I’ve been critical in the past). He’s always been good going forward – if only he defended like that regularly …