David Moyes is an unashamed michail Antonio fan and knows just how hard hew will be to replace.
However, Gianlucak Scamacca will get plenty of time to find his feet whilst Jarrod Bowen has shown himself capable of playing through the middle.
Moyes remains absolutely convinced that Mikey has a big role to play in the club’s future given his ability to play in a number of positions.
Speaking to reporters the manager said: “We don’t have to always play Michy. I actually thought Jarrod last year was edging more towards a no.9 than the wide player.
Jarrod gave us more of that in his goals but we need to find ways of using Mich. I said for someone coming in, trying to replace Michy and what he has done for this club in the last two and a half years will be some job as Michy has been talked about, he has been a star, he has put on a show and been terrific in the way he has worked for the team and I think Michy is a really difficult replacement.
That’s why Gianluca has to be given the time as we go on and Michy is far from moving aside. He is going to be keeping a hold of the jersey and there will be times when we play the two together
However, if you want to be at a big club you are going to have competition. You can’t not have competition. The players learned their lesson last year about the amount of games as well. Michy for example hit his record number of games.
I think he played 50 games last year, and if you look at Michy’s record over the other years, he had about 25. Michy got to 50 so even that, players improving, he has shown resilience, he is tougher, fitter, got himself in a condition to do that.
We may not be as lucky this year, and we still may need to add another one to give us plenty of attacking options and opportunities to make changes.
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