David Moyes criticises West Ham star Michail Antonio for causing an unnecessary distraction with his transfer comments.
When you are in a relegation battle – and make no mistake West Ham will be for the rest of the season – you need everyone pulling in the same direction.
So it has not gone down well at all with many fans that West Ham’s only fit striker Antonio is making headlines about potentially leaving the club.
Antonio has not been a happy Hammer this season with new-found competition from £35m summer signing Gianluca Scamacca – and now Danny Ings too.
It’s been written all over his face.
Antonio completely contradicted himself regarding West Ham signing a new striker over the last year.
Last January he urged the club to bring in a new forward to help share the goalscoring burden. But since Scamacca arrived and took his place, Antonio has complained about his lack of game time and appears somewhat demotivated.
Antonio did play a big part in West Ham’s vital 2-0 win over Everton at the weekend, setting up Jarrod Bowen’s second goal.
But he has looked a spent force at Premier League level for over a year now.
Everton and Wolves are reportedly very keen on signing the West Ham forward this month (BBC Sport).
And according to The Guardian – as also reported by The Metro – Chelsea’s injury crisis saw them enquire about the possibility of taking the West Ham forward on a cheap loan until the end of the season.
This week Antonio spoke candidly about rumours linking him with a West Ham exit, stating there had ‘been talks’ about a move away.
So inevitably that was one of the first questions Moyes was asked in his pre-match press conference for the FA Cup clash at Derby.
And Moyes criticised West Ham star Antonio for causing an unnecessary distraction with his transfer comments.
“Well it’s not the club talking about Micky Antonio, I think Micky is the one talking about it,” an agitated Moyes said when the striker’s comments were put to him (Football.London and whufc.com).
“Micky is someone who has been talking about his future, rather than the club.
“We have no intention of doing anything (with Antonio). We want Mick here, playing well, scoring goals and we’ll be happy to have him…
“Players are all entitled to having a voice, but it is not coming from the club or me,” Moyes added.
“We can only just get on. There is no problem with Mick, we have a great relationship. We just need to hope he finds the form he had a while back and get us the goals which can get us away. I have given him every opportunity to try and do that for us.”
Loosely translated that is effectively the manager telling Antonio to pipe down, knuckle down and do his talking on the pitch to make sure West Ham don’t go down!
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