West Ham failed to sign a striker on deadline day and Michail Antonio has delivered his verdict on the situation.
Hammers boss David Moyes tried the best he could to get a top-class striker through the door at the London Stadium throughout the January transfer window by all accounts.
Whether the owners backed him to the hilt is a debate for another time.
In other news…Report: West Ham rejected the chance to sign ‘special’ £220k-a-week player on D-Day
The bottom line is that West Ham didn’t make any new signings, that’s the only thing that we do actually know as fact. And that could end up costing us this season as we fight for honours on three fronts.
Michail Antonio is the only centre-forward option that Moyes currently has at his disposal. The 31-year-old has been exceptional for the Hammers over the past 18 months but there is just too much pressure on his shoulders to perform to his best week in, week out.
The Jamaica international would surely get even better if he had genuine competition for his place as well.
It is what it is though. David Moyes and his players have just got to get on with it now.
How did Michail Antonio really feel when West Ham failed to sign a striker though?
The 31-year-old has been the Hammers’ only striker for the past 13 months since Sebastien Haller was sold to Ajax in January 2021.
He will have to carry the burden of being West Ham’s only centre-forward until the end of the season now as well.
And Antonio responded when asked what he thought about the lack of new arrivals at the London Stadium in the January transfer window, when speaking on the Footballer’s Football Podcast:
“No. No, we never, we never got anyone, not a soul. But the thing is it is going to be easy to blame the chairman and stuff like that for not signing players because the fans love to do that but in this situation I just feel like the manager did not feel like there were any strikers out there that kind of fits the way he wants to play. We put a couple of bids in for a couple of players which did not fulfill at the end of the day but one thing with the manager he knows what he is looking for and once he knows the man that he wants he will go full-hearted after them.”
The truth of the matter is that West Ham actually need to sign two strikers in the summer.
We’ll be happy with one though after the way things have gone for us in the transfer market over the past year.
Antonio will be 32 in March, so he probably only has a couple of years left playing at the very highest level, considering the explosive nature of his playing style.
Let’s hope that Moyes makes a big splash in the transfer market in the summer.
Whether the owners will be prepared to back him though, is another matter entirely.
Read also:
£1.2m player’s baffling permanent D-Day exit from West Ham really went under the radar
Evening Standard claim West Ham actually made £60m bid for striker on deadline day
Di Marzio claims West Ham tried to sign £35 million-rated 30-year-old striker
Report: West Ham rejected the chance to sign ‘special’ £220k-a-week player on D-Day
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