Michail Antonio shares ‘unbelievable’ West Ham United admission ahead of Bayer Leverkusen clash
Michail Antonio has revealed that West Ham have got “nothing to lose” heading into the game against Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday (11 April).
Speaking on the BBC’s The Footballer’s Football Podcast on Wednesday (10 April), the Jamaican international said people are expecting the Hammers to lose against the Bundesliga club.
But the 34-year-old pointed out that it was a similar situation when his side knocked Sevilla out of the competition in 2022, where he admitted that the atmosphere inside the stadium was “unbelievable”.
The forward said the Irons are going to go into the Europa League quarter-final clash with belief, adding that the focus will be on doing enough for the fans to be “happy” with their performance.
“The thing is everyone thinks we’ve got this game already,” said Antonio. “We’ve got nothing really to lose. One thing with us is when people expect us to lose, other things happen.
“Two years ago we went to Sevilla away, lost 1-0, came back and everyone thought it was over, they always win the Europa League and stuff like that. What happened? It was us, knocked them out, home game, atmosphere was unbelievable.
“Last year everyone thought Fiorentina had the better team, West Ham is just alright, thinking we’ve done well just to get to the final. Nope, we’re holding the trophy.
“We’re going to take it easy, go there, believe and go out there and do what we can. As long as we perform well, it doesn’t matter if we win or we lose. We just have to go out there and do enough for the fans to be happy.”
Pressure is off West Ham against Bayer Leverkusen
There isn’t an awful lot of pressure on the West Ham players heading into the game as Leverkusen are the firm favourites to win the tie.
That has been a position that has benefited the Hammers players in the past, but they will know they have to be at their best to get a result against the Bundesliga side.
It’s hard to judge exactly what would be a good result from the first leg in Germany, but just remaining in the tie would probably be the hope for most of the supporters.
David Moyes will be keen to remind his side that they are good players themselves and can go toe-to-toe with most teams on their day.
They will just have to find the balance between going for it and sitting in and defending at times as there is still a second leg to play at the London Stadium.
In other West Ham news, the Hammers have received a boost in their pursuit of a Euro forward.
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