Moyes hints at line-up with high praise for Antonio
David Moyes has dropped a huge hint about his starting line-up when West Ham travels to the North East to play Newcastle in the early Premier League kick-off.
Moyes isn’t known for revealing his team prior to the match, but he may have let some secret squirrel info slip when discussing Michail Antonio ahead of the St James’ Park clash.
Let’s be honest here. It’s plain for all to see that the Hammers’ team carries far more threat when Antonio is in the line-up. This usually means Lucas Paqueta playing centrally and Mohammed Kudus deployed on the left, which, of course, means no James Ward-Prowse clogging up attacking positions.
Perhaps Moyes will have to juggle things around in the absence of the pivotal Edson Alvarez, but he was certainly keen to lavish praise on Antonio at the pre-match press conference.
Moyes hints at West Ham line-up as he tries to outsmart NUFC’s Eddie Howe
Moyes looking for goals
“I think having Michail Antonio back has given us another dimension,” said the Irons boss.
“It’s one that we’ve had in the past, but you’ve got to remember that he’s been out since November. Our results have been good. We’ve had some really good periods with and without Mick, but he scored a really good goal for us the other week against Aston Villa.
“It’s his goals we need him to add. I think to be a team at the top of the Premier League, you need to have regular goal scorers and goals being scored. Jarrod Bowen has got a great number of goals this year and has done brilliantly well recently, so we need Mick to get up amongst those numbers and score goals regularly for us.”
High praise indeed, and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see Antonio start against the Toon tomorrow.
My predicted team is: Areola, Coufal, Mavropanos, Zouma, Emerson, Soucek, Ward Prowse, Paqueta, Bowen, Kudus, Antonio