Michail Antonio made a baffling claim about the West Ham tactics and game-plan after we beat AZ Alkmaar 2-1 at the London Stadium last night.
West Ham earned a hard-fought victory against AZ Alkmaar in the end with goals from Said Benrahma and Michail Antonio, and we now head into the second-leg of the Europa Conference League semi-final with a slender advantage.
READ ALSO: Owen Hargreaves slams £18 million West Ham player for 42nd minute incident vs AZ Alkmaar
Antonio put in so much effort throughout the game before he was taken off in the latter stages and replaced by Danny Ings.
However, his comments after the match really concerned me, and baffled me at the same time…
Michail Antonio makes strange, mind-boggling claim about West Ham tactics vs AZ Alkmaar
Antonio was interviewed on BT Sport (Thursday May 11th, 9:56pm) and suggested that the Hammers changed their approach midway through the first-half:
“We knew that they would play some good football, we knew that they were a decent team. One thing we know about them, they are a possession based team and they like to play a bit of football – they know how to work it. We decided we will try to press them, and we were winning the ball off them but they kind of found their groove and claimed down. So we were like, ‘alright, we’ll let you have it and counter quickly and try and damage you.”
But why? When we were pressing the Dutch side high up the pitch they were making plenty of mistakes, and the Hammers players were forcing turnovers.
We actually looked quite dangerous doing that.
However, when West Ham started to sit off and let them play, the game completely turned on its head.
Alkmaar looked quite dangerous and deservedly took a 1-0 lead into the half-time break. West Ham really should have kept pushing and pressing high up the pitch rather than sit back and allow Alkmaar to do whatever they wanted with the ball.
I expect us to sit back and try to counter the hosts in the second-leg next week, but that’s understandable away from home.
The way we changed tactics midway through the first-half last night absolutely baffled me. And it would be interesting to know whether that was on the back of orders from Moyes or whether it was just an in-game switch from the players.
Either way, it was pretty concerning to hear Antonio’s comments after the match last night.
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