Michail Antonio believes that a West Ham connected player earning £190,000 per week should quit his current club.
It wasn’t exactly a tap-up of a player associated with West Ham, but Hammers striker Michail Antonio did everything but.
Apart from the signings of Edson Alvarez and James Ward-Prowse, the east Londoners haven’t had a very successful transfer window this summer.
Much of this may be attributed to the club’s hierarchy and management, who dallied and dithered until after selling former captain Declan Rice to Arsenal before putting their act together.
It’s debatable whether it was the board’s desire to get the money in first or David Moyes’ uncertainty about which objectives he needed.
Man United’s former captain, Harry Maguire, has been widely linked with the east Londoners.
Though the move appears to be off for the time being, it might be reconsidered before the end of the transfer window, and Antonio has urged that the England international, who makes £190,000 per week at United, consider leaving Old Trafford.
“I think he (Maguire) has another three years at Man United and West Ham aren’t paying his Man United money, so it’s like there is so much things behind the two clubs agreeing before the player can actually get to the club,” he stated on the Footballer’s Football Podcast.
“[…] I believe he is a fantastic player, and I believe he will do well once he regains his confidence and people stop criticizing him and allow him another chance to shine.
“I just feel like it’s been more like – people have just been bullying, I think it’s basically bullying.” I’ll state it plainly.
“How well and how well the boy has been playing, to the point where he’s now a shadow of himself, whereas before at Hull and Leicester he was driving with the ball, beating people, finding passes, but now he gets on the ball and he’s looking nervous when he was never that type of player.”
“So I think possibly leaving United could make him better.”
Antonio himself may be leaving the Hammers, with The Times (subscription required) and others reporting that Saudi Arabian teams have approached him, so his advise to Maguire may be in jeopardy.
appear strange.
However, in context, Antonio has not proposed that the defender go to East London, but rather that he remove himself from the firing line at Old Trafford.
