NEVERKUSEN
Antonio refuses to give up on the Hammers’ Euro dream and roars: The tie’s still alive
MICHAIL ANTONIO climbed off the deck after two late suckerpunches and promised West Ham will be back in Europe – one way or another.
The Hammers face a mountainous task to reach the Europa League semi-finals after their 2-0 defeat by Bayer Leverkusen.
And a top-seven finish in the Premier League now looks their best hope of making it past Calais next season.
They may need to beat Fulham tomorrow to stay ahead of Newcastle and Chelsea in the race for Europe, and the game’s importance is not lost on Antonio.
He said: “We don’t want to give up on Europe. We constantly want to be in it - that’s another step for us, to be in Europe every year, so the Premier League is as important as playing in this quarter-final this week.
“I think we’re doing all right. The performance last week (at Wolves) has given us a bit of momentum, so we don’t want to pile any pressure on ourselves.”
West Ham’s bid for a third European semi-final in as many years looks forlorn after playmaker Lucas Paqueta and fellow Brazilian Emerson were both booked in Leverkusen, ruling them out of the return leg next Thursday. With Jarrod Bowen a major injury doubt, after the England winger missed the trip to Germany, Antonio’s workload as lone striker isn’t about to become any lighter.
But he insisted:
“We have to believe. In football, it’s never over, and we’ve got another 90 minutes to go, maybe 120 minutes to go.
We keep going, keep pushing and keep believing.
“We can’t give up, we’ve got to believe in ourselves and that we can turn things around. We need to get one next week, then you never know… maybe try to take it to extra-time and turn things around. We’ve done it in the last two seasons and hopefully we can do it again.”
Antonio’s tireless shift against the German champions-in-waiting included setting up the Hammers’ only chance of the game for Mohammed Kudus in the opening 10 minutes as they were outgunned by 33-1 in goal attempts.
He admitted: “I thought, ‘Mo is finishing that’ - but today wasn’t the day and, hopefully, next week it will be. Hopefully, everything falls for us in the second leg.”