TEACHER’S DEBT

Home schooling’s too cruel on Antonio

MICHAIL ANTONIO will never take teachers for granted again – after a home schooling lockdown that he says was sheer “torture”.

The West Ham winger has had an up-and-down period during the Covid-19 crisis.

In March his father died after a long illness and then at the weekend came the arrival of his fourth child.

And during all that there was the home schooling for his other three children, which the Hammers star has admitted had him pulling his hair out.

West Ham restart their season on Saturday when David Moyes’ team face Wolves at the London Stadium, needing points to claw themselves away from the relegation zone.

Antonio, 30, will be just glad to get out on a football pitch again.

He said: “I’ve got three kids and my wife was pregnant until she had a baby on Sunday, so it was difficult home schooling and getting the time to go for runs.

“But knowing that the season was going to get back on, we needed to ensure we stayed fit because we knew we weren’t going to have much time to get back into it.

“Aaaarghhhhh! I feel like schooling should be a torture!

“If someone is doing something wrong, you should send kids to them and go, ‘Teach these kids’ because, do you know what, it was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life and it made home me emotional. Teachers, I appreciate you.

“We sat down and they’d be looking at the work and you’d explain the work to them as simple as you can, and they would just sit there, look at the work and ask to go to the toilet.

“They’d go to the toilet, come back and ask for a drink.

“You’d go to the fridge, get them a drink, come back, they’d have a drink and they’d say they don’t understand.

“It was literally a circle of toilet, drink and ‘I don’t understand’ and you’d be there for five hours and just want to pull your hair out.

“They liked PE and didn’t like English because of the comprehension and stuff you have to deal with. It brought me back.”

But now it is back to his normal job and Antonio added: “I’m feeling very good. I’m raring to go.

“Now that we know the season is starting, I just want to start now.

“After all that home schooling, the season should start today. I wish this was the first game.

“Wolves have quality players and they have been a bogey side for us but we believe in ourselves. We have a quality team here and so we’ve just got to go out and do the job.”