It’s a pretty damning moment in the life of West Ham 2020 when we are looking to £7 million Iron Mickey Antonio to become the main man up front!
But that’s what happened and, love the bloke as I do, it really is one of those ‘back to the future’ moments in the life of the club.
Blimey, at the start of the season he was seen as no more than an emergency striker – now he’s our main hope.
We have a £45 million striker at the club who is beginning to show why a certain Maxi Gomez was Pellegrini’s first choice back in the summer.
And of course we have £8 million Albian Ajeti who frankly should not be in the same squad – or indeed club – as the former Nottingham Forest man bought by Slaven Bilic.
We are still unsure whether he will be available for Monday night’s match against Arsenal when quite frankly the visitors should be there for the taking, but sadly that is never part of the West Ham Way is it?
There would no doubt be many – if we were to run a poll – who would agree that the Irons perhaps have a less than 25 per cent chance of doing so unless Mikey is available.
He’s become the talisman and after around 130 minutes first team football following a long, long lay off and is seen as our saviour on the goal scoring front which frankly is more than worrying
Haller is off the boil and Ajetii? Enough’s been said. As for Yarmolenko what you see is not always not what you get leaving us with Snoddy and hopefully Fornals to weigh in.
But I’m very much among those who can’t see where a goal is coming from if Antonio misses out and that really is pretty depressing given the dough that’s been spent.
COYI
Hugh
Last l heard Maxi Gomez is not playing that well
We are so desperate for a proven striker.
Yeah fair comment Geoff but may have been different withn us. I dunno just saying really mate
The reason we are pinning our hopes on antonio is because MP does not know how to play haller and continues to play him with no support and surprise surprise surprise the fans are calling him lazy waste of money etc if he used him probably dropped Roberto after Newcastle I doubt we be in this position and we could have eased Antonio back but instead he had to throw him in and had to play about 115 minutes over 2 games after a serious hamstring injury which has caused him miss wolves game completely.
Yes alot of the players have been in very poor form as well but the buck stops with MP and he has managed us poorly for weeks
What would you suggest playing? A 4-4-2 with two of the slowest central midfielders in Rice and Noble?
Maxi Gomez? Expected better Hugh let’s not go for the easy scapegoat. Haller thrived in a partnership last season, if you can’t give him that then you have to get players around him. Rather than complain when you’re marquee signing isn’t running himself into the ground chasing lost causes.. surely the real question is why isn’t the system getting the best out of the quality that we have? Whilst it might inspire a bit of fight now and get the fans behind you.. I’d rather a functioning system than relying on one player to carry the side and criticising when the big money signings don’t (as much as we’ve needed it)
I’ll use this as a blog James. I was suggesting badly that Pelle presumably saw Gomez as a better one up option which is clearly the sysyem he likes to play.
At least Antonio isn’t playing right back like Bilic made him play.That was crazy.
Optimistic noises from the club about Antonio. So that probably means he won’t play. Nice to be treated like kids.