It was exactly 70 days ago today that West Ham star Michail Antonio was pulled from the harrowing wreckage of his silver Ferrari at Epping Forest.
West Ham and Michail Antonio have since admitted he is lucky to be alive.
The broken limb he suffered in the crash the least of his concerns as the father of a young family.
With Antonio turning 35 in March, it was assumed by many he would never play football again.
Certainly not at the top level with West Ham, where his contract expires at the end of the season.
But write Antonio off at your peril.
This is a man who got to the top the hard way.
Grafting from non-league to the Premier League against the odds.
Written off time and again as West Ham spent millions trying to replace him, Antonio was always the one who eventually emerged as the main man again in the end.
Whether it was Sebastien Haller, Gianluca Scamacca, Danny Ings or Niclas Fullkrug.
There’s no Antonio to fall back on right now as Fullkrug faces another three months out. Evan Ferguson has been drafted in on loan to lead the line.
West Ham fans won’t believe how Antonio looks
It was reported the Jamaica forward would be out for at least a year if he was to ever return to football.
Antonio posted an emotional message when he broke his silence on the ordeal at the turn of the year.
The tear-jerking post was accompanied by a picture of the striker looking understandably gaunt and a shadow of the muscle-bound powerhouse who has spent most of the last decade making Premier League defenders wish they’d chosen a different occupation.
The image seemed to add weight to forecasts that Antonio would not be back until the end of 2025 at best.
Forget football, the whole sporting world rallied around the Hammers star in the wake of his crash and injury.
Signs and posts told the West Ham ace to ‘Get well soon’.
And Antonio has certainly taken those words quite literally.
West Ham fans won’t believe how Antonio looks ahead of a shock return.
Hammers News was told by a club source last week that Antonio had been making remarkable progress from his injury.
It had been widely reported he had been starting his recovery at a specialist rehab centre in Dubai.
The club source told us ‘Antonio could surprise everyone’ by coming back sooner than expected.
We decided not to publish that at the time so as not to put undue pressure on the player or West Ham.
But it has now been reported elsewhere that the situation is even more remarkable than we were led to believe.
The Daily Mail published a picture of Antonio working on his recovery.
And it is a sight to behold.
Shock and very tentative return date pencilled in for Antonio
Antonio looks in such amazing shape with his trademark thigh muscles rippling as he does exercises with heavy weighted bag.
He looks unbelievable.
And his new potential return date is unbelievable too.
A top West Ham source urged serious caution when providing a heartening update on Antonio.
But if Antonio continues to recover at his current rate with no setbacks and smooth sailing – which won’t be a given after the trauma he has suffered – then a “very, very tentative date” has been pencilled into the West Ham diary.
Because, astonishingly, the club are hopeful Antonio might be able to feature in the final week of the season when West Ham take on his former club Nottingham Forest in their last home game of the campaign before a trip to Ipswich.
“He is making wonderful progress so far and his years of being a supreme athlete have clearly stood him in good stead,” a West Ham source told Hammers News.
“These are very early days and we wouldn’t dream of putting a set timescale or expectation on his recovery after what he’s been through.
“But there is hope that he might be able to return before the season is out with the final week pencilled in as a very, very tentative date. But there’s no guarantees and it would be a minor miracle but if anyone can it is him. Just having him back around the squad and not necessarily even playing would be a huge morale booster.”
Michail Antonio really is West Ham’s miracle man.
Even if he doesn’t make it back by then, the fact Antonio is even anywhere close to returning what would be around seven months sooner than expected is an achievement in itself.
What a guy.
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