Antonio can’t keep his hands to himself

Michail Antonio would be a happier man if he could keep his hands to himself!

Antonio – having finally recovered from injury – saw a goal at St Mary’s  ruled out via VAR because the ball hit his hands just as had been the case against Chelsea.

And he declared: “It’s just one of those things where VAR is killing me right now, but hopefully these handballs and these disallowed goals can turn into goals later in the season!”

Things are finally started to go the right way against the Saints with Antonio believing the win was well deserved telling the official site: “We were great.  We had some real good opportunities we didn’t take but there were loads of positives. Next game, I think we have got to take those opportunities but it was a much-needed win and we keep pushing on from here.

“We’ve just not been consistent enough. In our last three games, you could see there were loads of positives in our performances. Before that, to be fair, we weren’t performing well, then we performed well at Chelsea and Wolves where, even though we lost, there were loads of positives from the game.

“Against Arsenal, we played well for 60 minutes, then had ten minutes of madness, then Saturday we played a good 90-minute game. You can see the positives coming from the performances in the last four games and hopefully we can turn the performances into points.”

Antonio praised manager Pellegrini  for switching the formation to a 4-4-2, pairing with Haller and himself looking a lethal attack in the making.

He said: “A good manager won’t put pressure on his players. A good manager will let you to play free and play with confidence. That is one thing he said to us, basically: ‘Just go out there and play as well as we know we can’. I felt we did that.