‘Antonio has a good chance for Sunday’ – Moyes delivers good news for West Ham v Spurs
West Ham boss David Moyes has said Michail Antonio has a good chance of playing a part in the match against Spurs on Sunday.
The Englishman was absent for the FA Cup defeat to Manchester United and the 3-0 win in the league against Sheffield United on Monday.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Moyes revealed the striker has been working on the training ground and could play a role this weekend.
He said: “Michail Antonio has a good chance for Sunday because he has had a few days training.
“We’re always careful with Mick because we want to make sure he’s right, but he was close for the last game.
“He’s been doing more work in the training pitch and we’ll know more tomorrow.”
A big boost
This would be excellent news going into one of our biggest matches of the season.
A win at home on Sunday will see us open up a nine-point gap over Tottenham. Mourinho’s side were considered to be title challengers earlier in the season, but have struggled recently.
It goes without saying how important Antonio is to West Ham. Without his goals and assists, we’d be 11 points worse off this season.
Without him, we’d be sitting 12th in the Premier League table on 31 points, looking over our shoulder rather than pushing for the European places.
His transition from winger to out and out striker has been seamless. When fully fit, no centre half in the league wants to face Antonio. It was clear to see against Fulham that he wasn’t 100%. Hopefully missing the last two matches have given him time to recover.
The Tottenham game is the first of a tough run for us. In our next five games, we face Spurs, City, Leeds, United and Arsenal. If we can get through these fixtures with seven to ten points, maybe we can start thinking about Europe properly.
One thing is for sure, a fully fit Antonio is crucial.
In other West Ham news, Jarrod Bowen thinks the Hammers are going under the radar.