The glorious improbability of Michail Antonio surprising Manchester City’s expensively assembled defence by scoring a remarkable acrobatic goal last weekend is one of many reasons why he is so irreplaceable for West Ham United.
There were no supporters in attendance, but whether it be at a cinema, in the comfort of their own homes, a pub, or at a restaurant, it would not be hard picturing a scene where fans up and down the country were giving the forward a standing ovation at what they had just seen.
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It was Antonio’s 12th goal in his last 17 league appearances and given his goalscoring potency there will have been a deep worry among West Ham supporters when, early in the second half, he departed the field and walked down the tunnel while clutching his hamstring.
The length of Antonio’s absence is still being assessed and The Athletic understands he will not face Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday and is likely to be out for about a month. Given his importance to the team and his recent form, the shorter any absence is the better for West Ham. Even one game though will likely be enough to illustrate that what Antonio brings to the team, even beyond spectacular goals, is unique within this squad.
Those close to Antonio say this is the happiest he has been in a very long time. As he is getting older, he is starting to understand positioning and his body better. The 30-year-old gets a hamstring iced throughout the week, which is common for a lot of players, and enjoys playing under David Moyes.
Antonio’s current deal expires at the end of this season, but as revealed by The Athletic in July, West Ham have the option to offer him a one-year contract extension next summer. Antonio makes in the region of £70,000 a week, including bonuses, which is some way short of the club’s highest earners such as Felipe Anderson, now on a season-long loan at Porto, and Andriy Yarmolenko.
Antonio would be happy to stay at West Ham for the rest of his career and wanted to negotiate a new contract earlier this year, but talks were postponed due to the club’s financial situation changing amid the pandemic and no deal has yet been agreed.
The club could trigger his one-year option but it is believed the preference is to discuss a long-term contract. The Athletic understands conversations are likely to take place in December or January and that Antonio would like a four-year deal.
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His stats also add credence to how vital he is to how West Ham play.
Antonio has been fouled 17 times so far this Premier League season, joint third in the division and not just the most on any West Ham player but more than twice as many as the next highest — Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek with eight. It underlines Antonio’s ability to draw defenders in and retain the ball in the opposition half, which then gives Moyes’s side an opportunity to build an attack.
It is not simply about winning free kicks either, once he gains possession he is also strong enough to retain it legally, a quality highlighted by him ranking fifth in the Premier League for duels won (49) behind only Luke Ayling (50), Jack Grealish (51), team-mate Soucek (53), and Oli McBurnie (62).
The only worry about Antonio is whether he will be able to remain injury-free for a sustained period.
In an interview with The Athletic last September, Barry Sigrist, a rehabilitation specialist who previously worked as West Ham’s first-team sports therapist, said it is not unusual for players such as Antonio to become more prone to hamstring injuries over time.
“If you’re a striker, winger or a full-back and you’re repeatedly asked to sprint, you’re constantly working your hamstrings, so then the risk of injury increases,” Sigrist said. “They tend to get a lot more hamstring injuries, mainly because in those positions, they get to reach top speeds.”
Antonio has played an important role in West Ham’s resurgence under Moyes over the past 10 months and given the ubiquitous and unselfish nature of his performance, the manager is acutely aware that he doesn’t have another forward at his disposal who can match Antonio’s work rate.
If his injury is serious, it is likely Sebastien Haller or Yarmolenko will be his replacement. It was interesting that Moyes brought on Yarmolenko, not Haller, when Antonio went off against Manchester City and played Bowen in a central role. The switch lasted for roughly 17 minutes, before Haller was summoned to replace Bowen.
One of the issues West Ham faced in Antonio’s absence was the ability to retain the ball in the attacking third, which led to them falling deeper and allowing City to exert greater pressure, as can be seen in the touch maps below.
The map above shows West Ham’s average positions in the time Antonio (No 30) was on the pitch; the one below depicts their average positions after Haller’s introduction (No 22), where they are deeper as a team and the focal point of the attack is nowhere near as advanced.
This was clearly an issue when Bowen took over the central role from Antonio and below are the passes the former Hull forward attempted in the whole match. The black lines are successful passes and the yellow ones unsuccessful passes. While much of his role was on the wing, it is clear that even when Bowen moved to the centre he was unable to play a successful pass in the final third.
If you compare that with Antonio, below, you can see the difference he brings. There are no killer passes, but he is successfully keeping and moving the ball within the final third.
Moyes attempted to regain that physical presence in attack by putting on Haller but it would prove an underwhelming performance from the club’s record signing.
Haller only managed to touch the ball nine times during the 21 minutes plus stoppages he was on the field and of the seven passes he played, only one was completed successfully in the opposition half, as you can see with his pass map below. It meant West Ham had little hope of building attacks in the Manchester City half as they looked for a winning goal.
He is the club’s leading scorer across all competitions this season with five goals but has not yet proved as capable as Antonio at leading the line in the Premier League.
“Listen, if you smack a centre-half in the first couple of minutes, they’ll think twice about coming through the back of you,” former West Ham striker Bobby Zamora told The Athletic’s U Irons podcast in June. “I think that’s something you have to learn and be coached into you, if you don’t have that personal fight. I think that’s certainly something he (Haller) needs to bring to his game if he’s going to play in England.
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“He (Antonio) works hard and that’s what you’ll get from him every week. He’s going to work his socks off. He chases things down, smashes into people, and you don’t mind that at all.”
First-team coach and former England left-back Stuart Pearce appears to have had a positive impact on Arthur Masuaku and Aaron Cresswell on the defensive end, and you wonder whether Kevin Nolan could similarly give Haller more self-belief. As a goalscoring midfielder, Nolan played alongside and often got the best out of target men throughout his career: Kevin Davies and Johan Elmander at Bolton Wanderers, Shola Ameobi and Andy Carroll for Newcastle United and Carroll again with West Ham.
This could be something Moyes explores. Another option in the central role is Yarmolenko, who played there for Ukraine against France earlier this month, but his track record suggests he is more of a threat for West Ham when he comes off the bench, scoring the winner in the 3-2 defeat of Chelsea in July and the equaliser in the 1-1 draw with Aston Villa three weeks later.
West Ham must now find a way to win in the short term without Antonio and his absence, as it did for those last 40 minutes against Manchester City, is likely to show why it might make sense for West Ham to tie him down to a new deal.
(Top photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)