Michail Antonio’s injury is well and truly out of the bag!
David Moyes had been insisting that his only striker was suffering from fatigue but supporters knew this was a smoke screen and the real reason was Mikey’s fragile hamstrings.
Antonio played against Fulham but did not look match fit, he was left out of the FA Cup fifth round tie against Manchester United and was missing again from the match day quad against Sheffield United.
Claret and Hugh understand that Mikey felt a tight left hamstring against Fulham, he pulled up and looked in discomfort before he was substituted. He has not been able to train fully and remains a doubt for the Spurs game on Sunday according to the manager.
Speaking post match Moyes told reporters “Micky is really important to us and we hope to get him back. It was a big game for us and it wasn’t a risk to play him but we knew that he is in a position where something could happen and I don’t want to lose him for a long period. I hope that he’ll be fine for Sunday but I have no guarantee at this moment in time that that is the case.
With Yarmolenko out injured for a long period of time the manager praised his new forward setup for helping the win over the Blades
The gaffer told the media in his post match interview “We scored three goals and I thought Jarrod, Jesse, and Manu did a really good job in causing problems in different ways tonight. “
No surprise there at all ….as I said before,,why lie ,,we all know it was his hamstring,, so why make himself look silly and say its fatigue…dont get it
The Fulham game was less than a week after the January window closed. They knew the stick they would get if they owned up to Antonio getting injured with us not even signing a loan striker till the end of the season. There was no excuse not to since Fulham, Wolves, Palace and WBA all managed to get a forward in via an overseas loan. That’s why they’ve been cagey about it.
We really need to sort this hamstring problem out.
Antonio plays for sixty or seventy minutes then gets subbed to protect his hamstring,then doesn’t play the next match and so it goes on.
Is this is what is going to happen for the rest of the season?,it’s ridiculous!
Spot on Alan
It is ridiculous… As Hammer rite says… Plays 60 odd mins first 20 at full pace next 40 at 70%…then misses 2 or three games… Great player when on form but a shame that he has these Hamstring injuries and at 31 next month he’s not getting any younger….But the way Sullivan,in particular runs the club with his scattergun approach on transfers in the past, is gradually stopping with moyes taking a 💯 role in recruitment and setting up a proper scouting network not Sullivan’s agents saying we might have one here… and you wonder if Sullivan has said to moyes don’t drop me in It with Antonio… But slowly slowly moyes is building a new and better squad…COYI ⚒️
We scored 3 against the bottom side in the PL, don’t get me wrong I was very happy at the result, but they are not the bottom side for nothing and Spurs will be a very different prospect. Antonio will not play many more games this season if the last three seasons games played profile is continued , so not having a recognised senior striker at the club is not only utter negligence it also puts do much pressure on others to fill the gap. Totally unnecessary but so typically GSB!!
yEAh I noticed how useless Lingard was too. And btw if you still don’t have the message these are DM signings I think you should lie down with a nice cup of tea
We are doing extremely despite Antonio, and I give credit where it is due to Moysey and the boys for that.
However, it is absolutely crazy not to have cover for Antonio, or as someone said the other day bring a proper forward in and have Antonio as cover.
To have no out and out forward at the club is a dereliction of duty, who from I don’t know!!
I think everyone agrees it would have been better to get in cover for Antonio, I’m sure Moyse would agree.
However he made the decision not to and has explained why not since the window closed.
When you consider we effectively played with 10 men when Haller was on the pitch I think we will reap great reward from the front 3 of Bowen ,Lingard and Lanzini.
We’ll have Masuaku back shortly too.
We are where we are because of team effort inspired by Moyse. I can hardly see them suddenly crumbling now because we didn’t get a back up striker for 3 months.
COYI