Antonio reveals – “why I know I’ll get the sharpness back”

From fearing the worst in December last year, to almost mad March optimism in 2025, watching West Ham’s star number nine endure a near-death experience and now fight to recover his physical strength has been deeply moving.

From the fans’ chanting at games  – Antonio says he could hear on TV the fans singing his name – to the brief news items with rehab pictures – it has been almost too much to expect, thinking that as West Ham fans we might ever get to see the club’s record goal scorer appear again.

The man himself appears still upbeat and explains in an article reported by bbc.com why he is certain, just like the Terminator, ‘he’ll be back’: Because of his supreme fitness levels before the crash, Mikey feels certain he’s no normal thirty something when it comes to recuperation:

I know that I’ll play again, and I know that once I’m playing the game I’ll get the sharpness back. I was one of the quickest at West Ham. So my body wasn’t the body of a 34-year-old before I had the accident anyway. I can still be sharp and still do the business.”

It will be an incredible feat, with a shattered femur – thigh bone – that needed bolting back together. ( If you’re squeamish, look away now..)

“They put a pole in my thigh with four bolts, so screws and bolts to knit it back together.”

Would you bet against him making it back onto the pitch? Absolutely not. “Within three weeks I was walking, and by five weeks I was walking normally, trying to do more strength work with the leg press. I’m at 130kg on the leg press now, and I can hop and I’m trying to jump. Things are improving all the time, and the muscles are getting back to where they were, which is great. 

And on the huge changes at West Ham in his absence? Antonio admitted how tough that has been:

“I’m not gonna lie, it was one of the hardest things for me, the fact a new manager came in and I wasn’t there to show what I can do, with my contract up at the end of the season.

With a new manager and very much a new era at West Ham now, you certainly wouldn’t bet against Antonio getting his contract extension this summer to prove his worth next season.