7 Comments

Antonio, Soucek, Lingard fitness updates

Mikey Antonio faces another scan on his hamstring today after leaving last night’s Molineux action at the half hour or so mark.

The player has been told that such is the issue in that area he has to make it clear he needs to leave match action if he feels the slightest twinge.

We understand the move was entirely precautionary last night but there will need to be a scan and even should that be okay he is likely to miss the Leicester match to ensure he rests up .

The Hammers clearly can’t rely on the 31 year old as their front line striker next season and it’s believed that David Moyes has two or three names on his list of potential targets.

However, there was good news on Tomas Soucek and Jesse Lingard who appeared to be limping as they left the action at Wolves.

We understand both took only superficial knocks and will be ok for the game against the Foxes.

 

 

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon

7 comments on “Antonio, Soucek, Lingard fitness updates

  1. Uh, if Antonio is passed fit how can we allow him to miss the game against Leicester, he is the only forward we have?

    • Looks like Lingard is doing pretty well as a forward, it’s scoring goals that matter not who is doing it as Man City have proved!

  2. It’s coming back to bite us now that we didn’t sign/loan a forward in January.
    It’s ridiculous that we are pushing for a CL place and we have only one crocked forward.

    • I’d say it’s amazing 🙂

    • Absolutely hammer rite .done well to get to this stage . ,but imagine if we did have another option,,we could of done even better …Antonio won’t play for a few weeks imo ,its always the same when he gets fatigue 🤣🤣 then he needs 2/3 games to get up to speed so basically season would be over ..there is still a long way to go..and now we have to do it without rice and Antonio,,….so I would hold back on the celebrations just yet ……

  3. For some time now it has looked like we will need 2 new forwards for next season, not 1. Antonio has been a great servant and remains a real asset when fit and available but sadly that’s less and less often. Repeatedly having hamstring problems and as his game is based on bursts of power and pace over guile or trickery, it means he is really only worth considering when 100% fit. I really expect him to miss quite a lot of games as a result and we are well short in that area of the pitch

  4. To plug the gap left by Antonio, we have a few options, likewise the even bigger gap left by Dec’s longer absence. Up top we are going to have to play without a target man, but I have faith in Lingard-Fornals-Bowen-Benrahma across the front three to create enough movement that we can get past defences anyway. The problem is in stopping Leicester-Newcastle-Chelsea from getting past our increasingly fragile defence ( – hurry back Oggy!). To solve that, let’s turn to our right-backs (the only area in our thin squad where we DO have any strength in depth): why not try Coufal as the CDM alongside Tomas (no language barrier!)? – got to be worth a try! – and then use Fredericks as RWB, Arthur as LWB, and Cresswell alongside Dawson and Ogbonna/Diop at the back. I’d then start with Fornals central, Benrahma left and Lingard right in attack, reserving Bowen for the second half as soon as Lingard inevitably starts to tire (his last two games have shown that he does). Noble to come on last 15 mins max.or earlier if Coufals can’t adapt to the new role – but I bet he can!

Comments are closed.