Bilic hit by another major injury blow

Michail Antonio has become the latest Hammer to be ruled out of Saturday evening’s match against Liverpool at the London Stadium.

Antonio has been in and out of the team this season after undergoing a summer operation to repair a torn hamstring.

But now he has suffered a recurrence of a rib injury sustained during West Ham’s 3-0 recent home defeat by Brighton.

It’s all bad news this week for manager Slaven Bilic who has lost Pablo Zabaleta’s natural replacement in Sam Byram who has a quads injury.

And final decisions are still awaited on the positions of central defenders Winston Reid and Jose Fonte.

Antonio will be missed badly by the manager despite heavily criticising the Hammer of the Year last week following an error in the closing seconds which led to the Palace equaliser.

After the game he said that it was a mistake which should never happen at this level of the game to which ClaretandHugh pundit Max Willow responded that the player should not have been on the pitch as he was clearly in pain – a situation which has been confirmed by his absence tomorrow!