It was one year ago that Michail Antonio diced with death when his Ferrari hit a tree in thunderous conditions, and it was nigh on ten years ago that he bundled in his first goal for West Ham.
It could feasibly be argued that a ridiculously scruffy strike against Southampton set the tone for much of what was to follow. Bringing a bouncing ball under control, our number 30 – as he was then – cut into the penalty area from his starting position on the left before losing his balance under minimal pressure; as he fell, the defender’s attempted clearance cannoned off Antonio’s broad chest and ricocheted over the stranded goalkeeper’s head. Easy on the eye? No. Effective? Yes.
The “Raw” Reality of a Record Breaker
Our Premier-League-record-goalscorer’s playing style was, quite frankly, as erratic as his driving. The adjective regularly attached to Antonio was ‘raw’. Even as a senior pro, those rough edges never got smoothed out. However, raw commonly precedes pace, power and determination, and those things – along with a sometimes infuriating unpredictability – became his hallmarks.
And, over the years, Antonio’s playing style became absolutely integral to West Ham’s. This is probably a strange thing to say of somebody whose skillset essentially made him an agent of chaos, but Michail Antonio was West Ham’s figurehead for so long that we seem almost lost without him.
The Decline and a Potential Moyes Reunion
That’s not to say that it was a mistake to go our separate ways. His powers had clearly been on the wane for a good year or two before the accident hastened his demise. It was impressive enough that he returned from those horrific injuries to add to his international caps for Jamaica in the summer, but I’d be surprised to see Antonio rack up another Premier League appearance after the age of 35, even though his past glories make him a person of interest to any teams struggling for a focal point up front, such as Fulham, Everton (potential Moyes reunion) and, er, ourselves.
It would be classic Sullivan to make a January move for an aged, injury-stricken free agent but Antonio presumably burnt those bridges when he rejected a short-term, pay-as-you-play deal. A return would, however, be testament to his powers of recovery. It’s intended as a compliment when I say that Antonio is like one of those movie monsters with the uncanny ability to rise again: every time he was put down, when we believed we’d upgraded to something more sophisticated, back he came.
The Failure of the Sophisticated Successors
Sébastien Haller was £45m worth of talent and his highlights reel would put Antonio’s to shame. Wonder goals against Sheffield United and Crystal Palace demonstrated a finesse that eluded his teammate, but despite being 6’3” Haller also demonstrated a fragility that made him disturbingly ineffective in the Premier League. For a big guy with a supposedly good touch, the ball bounced off him like a trampoline, and it wasn’t long before Moyes put his trust back in Antonio to be the fulcrum of our attack.
Gianluca Scamacca was like Haller take two. The Italian made his debut as an Antonio substitute and he superficially possessed the ruggedness to make the role of lone centre-forward his own, but a mere three goals and 15 appearances later, he was heading back to Serie A a busted flush.
Niclas Füllkrug came with Champions League pedigree but has looked, in his fleeting appearances, better suited to the Championship. As with the previous two, it could be argued that we’re not playing to his strengths, but gone are the days when centre-forwards can expect their teams to operate in service to them; the modern striker, with perhaps a few notable exceptions that are out of our price range, is a cog in a machine.
An Agent of Chaos in Nuno’s System
Antonio was the cog that kept us ticking over, the only reliable outlet for Moyes’s low-block. But even when we’ve tried to transition to more progressive tactics, we’ve failed to find anyone as effective. And prime Antonio would undoubtedly be a godsend to Nuno Espírito Santo’s counter-attacking instincts, like a cross between Adama Traore at Wolves and Chris Wood at Forest.
Of course, he was far from the complete striker. Antonio in a one-on-one with the goalkeeper would probably have an equivalent xG to a Brentford long throw, he couldn’t score from outside the box, and his attempts at buying free kicks were occasionally embarrassing. On the other hand, those who derided him as ‘not a real number 9’ were obviously not paying attention to West Ham’s striker curse, because he did a far better impression of one than many others I’ve seen.
Had his driving not jinxed him then I strongly suspect Antonio would still be a regular starter. And only once we break the curse and sign a long-term replacement will the ghost of Antonio truly be laid to rest.
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