Michail Antonio insists that contrary to the views of many, the penalty award against Hull was fully justified.
Explaining the incident leading up to Mark Noble’s successful spot kick, he said: “The ball was in the air, I out-strengthened Huddlestone. I took a touch to swing and hit but he’s held my leg. Some people will say it’s light, but I believe it was a penalty.
He said: “At half time the manager told me to go out there, drive at them and use my pace. He put me up there in a two up-front and he asked me to cause some damage. That’s what I did in the second half.”
And the all-action winger revealed: The manager asked me to go out there and do some damage in the second half. That’s what I did.
“It’s been a very good week with seven points from it, so we’ve just got to build on that now. Hopefully we’ve left the bad results behind us.
“The points on the table is what lifts the pressure. We’ve got seven from our last three games and that’s got us up to 13th in the table, and if you keep getting points then there won’t be any pressure.”
And he is absolutely convinced the Hammers luck has changed after the escaped with a victory despite City near misses.
He said: “They hit the woodwork three times. It didn’t go in and that’s the kind of luck we haven’t been having this season.
“At the beginning of the season, whenever someone attacked we got punished, but on Saturday things went our way. Hopefully we won’t need luck in the future and we can win comfortably.”
Agree 32, grabbing another player is a penalty and Ant was trying to shoot when he was held.
I thought it eas a penalty in the stadium and still thought it after watching the replays on MOTD, the award of that wasn’t lucky but them not scoring definitely was, we need to buck up fast or all that luck will count for nothing.
Championship side is a bit harsh… When we play consistently like we did against Palace and first 85mins against Spuds we are a top 10 team.. but you are dead right about the tactics, very worrying Slaven can’t work out how to best use our more gifted players.
Been pretty lucky with the footy this last week. Saw West Ham on weds and saturday at the OS, and took my brother to see spuds at WHL.
I dont usually watch any other teams even on tv, but watching spuds yesterday made me realise how shockingly poor we are at west ham.
1. Effort.
Rose and Walker have got some proper engines on them. They were all over burnley, going in for every challenge, running circles around players, At west ham it looked like they had packed up for christmas already. Ayew so so lazy and carroll couldnt even be bothered to get into the box.
2. Tactics.
Seemed like a free for all at the OS. Nobody really seemed to play any position they were all over the place. Spuds attacked in formation and with intent. Almost every pass was spot on and the communication between players was too. At west ham too many times payet made a run forward only to find himself passing backwards to lazy AC and Ayew who should be ahead waiting for a cross. Whats the point in having the prems biggest ‘aerial threat’ if he doesnt get into the box. Every spuds attack there were always at least 2 waiting in the box.
West ham fans we say we are a mid table team at best but tbh we should be lucky to call ourselves a championship side at the moment.
Rant over.