West Ham winger Jarrod Bowen drops ‘horrible’ verdict on Michail Antonio
West Ham winger Jarrod Bowen has branded his teammate Michail Antonio “horrible” to play against after the London Stadium defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt.
David Moyes’ side suffered a 2-1 defeat in the Europa League semi-final and will have to overturn the deficit against the Bundesliga side away from home if they want to reach the final in Seville.
The Jamaica international ended his barren run in front of goal with his first-half equaliser and Bowen hopes that will give him confidence for the second leg.
He told BT Sport: “I thought I had scored the first one and it hit the post and the one at the end I just thought hit it and see what happens. Unfortunately, it didn’t go in but still have loads of confidence in this group.
“Antonio’s hold up play is excellent, he’s horrible to play against and to get a goal tonight hopefully gives him a bit of confidence.
“We’re behind in the tie. We’ve got to face the facts that we’ve got to go there and win and that’s what we’ll try to do.”
Finally.
At long last, Antonio finally scored. His form has come under question for so long now whilst being terrible in front of goal but his performances – especially in Europe – have kept the fans from unleashing their fury on the 32-year-old.
He has been instrumental in the Hammers’ journey to the semi-final with massive performances in every round.
Defenders throughout Europe will have nightmares about his pace, power and movement for the rest of the season he has been that good at times.
Now that he has got his first goal, hopefully, the floodgates open because they will need a few goals over in Germany next week.
The season he has had has gone completely under the radar not only has he scored 22 goals across all competitions, but he has also done it as the squad’s only senior striker – that deserves a lot of credit.
In other West Ham news, Carlton Cole and Joe Cole were left in awe of rarely seen Hammer’s Europa League displays.
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