Strike duo can terrorise defences

Mikey Antonio and Seb Haller formed a twin Hammers spearhead for the first time against Southampton and showed they are ready to terrorise PL defences if the managers decides to keep them together.

Antonio’s performance was quite incredible and, starting for the first time, in a while the Frenchman would have been delighted to have him alongside such was his own display.

It’s been a long time coming – and one which the fans have been cring out for – and during the first half  in partixular, it clearly scared the life out of Southampton.

Haller’s goal wasn’t the most cleanly hit effort but given it was his first since October we can expect it to give him a real confidence boost as we prepare for Palace and Leicester City.

He also laid on some fine passes and with Antonio popping up here, there and everywhere led the line very well indeed as the Hammers made it six points from the last 12.

And afterwards the pair commenting for Sky Sports and quoted at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/december/14-december/antonio-haller-share-their-delight-southampton-win were thrilled with the outcome.

Antonio said: “It’s massive. Obviously we showed in our performances in the last couple of weeks we’ve improved, but we haven’t got the results we wanted.

“But today we showed that we’ve got the fire, that we’ve got the grit and we’ve got the three points – a massive three points too, because they were only a point behind us and now they’re four [behind us].

On his disallowed goal for handball he added: “I think I’m going to cut my hands off. It happened to me at Chelsea and it’s happened again today. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my arms but it’s like a magnet to it.

“It shows I’m still getting in the good positions and hopefully they’ll start turning to goals!”

“It was good to play with him up front. Me and him have a good relationship at the training ground and it’s good to do it on the pitch. You could see the chemistry between us, we were always linking, always close to each other and hopefully we can keep performing in this way and push up the league.

“It was a massive result because we’ve got loads of respect for the manager. We started the season well before we went on a bit of a blip. I’ve been here for five years now and we’ve always come out of these blips. Hopefully this is the time where we can start moving forward and getting ourselves up the league.”

Haller was more than happy with his first strike in nine games and said: “It’s been a while and for me, for the team, for the club, it was a really important win. I’m just happy with this one and I hope we can score even more because we need it.

“It was not easy [in the second half], but really important to get the three points, no matter how they came.”

Read more at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/december/14-december/antonio-haller-share-their-delight-southampton-win#AvHp2kzluV4mEc1G.99