HE’S THE ONESIE FOR ME
‘I knew Antonio was special... he arrived dressed like a cow!’
WHEN Michail Antonio danced with a cardboard cut-out of himself last week, Gary Megson wasn’t in the least bit surprised.
As the West Ham star added ‘Dirty Dancing’ to his growing list of elaborate goal celebrations, former Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton and West Brom chief Megson was reminded of the day he signed the striker for the Owls.
Megson said: “We’d seen Michail when he was on loan at Colchester.
“To be honest, he didn’t do much against us and, at the time, I thought, ‘Thank heavens for that,’ because he’d got the pace to really hurt teams.
“If you’ve got that pace, no one can do much about it – and he was good in the air too. We were struggling to get players in, and he just stuck in my mind as having something different. I couldn’t get the money to buy him, but we got him on loan from Reading.
“I wasn’t prepared for what happened next – on the day of his signing he walked into my office dressed in a onesie.
“No joke – a big black and white onesie. I think it was supposed to be a snow leopard – but he looked more like a Friesian cow.
“What can you do? I just burst out laughing. To this day, I’ve got no idea why Michail turned up like that. But it was great really, because it certainly broke the ice. Normally, you expect players to come dressed either in a suit and tie, or a pair of jeans. That’s what usually happens.
“I was laughing at the time and I’m still laughing now, thinking about it.”
Celebrations
Antonio struck again yesterday in a 2-2 sraw with Crystal Palace and has become a cult figure at West Ham after a string of choreographed goal celebrations that have set tongues wagging.
He has come up with the Hip
Thrust, the Homer Simpson spin, the Worm, the Running
Man and the Magic Carpet, during his stint in the East End.
Megson (right), who also boasts Norwich, Blackpool, Stockport, Stoke, Nottingham Forest and Leicester on his managerial CV, spent just a short time with Antonio at Wednesday.
But he tagged the forward as one to watch when previewing the upcoming
Championship season in this newspaper seven years ago. And now Megson reckons international honours could be on the cards for the uncapped Antonio, 31, who has been selected for England squads in the past and also
qualifies for Jamaica.
Megson said: “I think he is now close to the finished article and in terms of the England squad, he’s got to be close to it.
“He gives something you don’t get with many other players. You can’t take liberties with him. You can’t squeeze up, because any ball over the top, he’s going to be quicker than anyone.
“If you drop deep, he’s now much better with his back to goal and he’ll attack crosses. He’s very good in the air. And he’s got a monstrous long throw, which I’m sure David Moyes knows.
“He offers you a dimension that other players haven’t got, but any English centre-forward is going to have to play a waiting game at the moment.
“When I managed Bolton, Kevin Davies got an England cap. And I remember saying the same thing about him as I’m going to say about Michail.
“People judge certain players about what they can’t do, rather than what they can. He is not the same kind of player as Kevin but the reasoning still stacks up.
“Most international sides defend deeper and with Michail’s strength in the air he’s something different to what we have.”
NO wonder the group hug in front of the emptying Kop seemed to last for an age.
No wonder Thomas Tuchel gave a congratulatory back-slap to every single player.
A mere point but a performance that was probably as significant as any in the Premier League under the German.
When Reece James was sent off and Mohamed Salah equalised from the resulting penalty in firsthalf stoppage time, Chelsea momentarily imploded.
But Tuchel got them in the dressing-room, clearly calmed their minds and bodies and masterminded a fantastic second half resistance movement.
Dogged
Liverpool were nowhere near their best but, led by stellar defensive performances from the likes of Andreas Christensen, Chelsea were wonderfully dogged.
No doubt about it, both these teams will be in the title battle next Spring.
As for this match, it was all about the moments just before half-time.
First things first, Chelsea had only themselves to blame for not taking an iron grip on matters ahead of the penalty/red card furore.
In his short time at the club, Tuchel’s training ground drills have turned Chelsea into one of the most efficient exponents of the counter-attack.
And after a Kai Havertz header had spun over Alisson to nudge the visitors ahead, they had plenty of opportunities to add more security to their lead.
Shanked
Their failing in that regard was not always the finish – although Mason Mount shanked one beauty of a chance – but the final ball. Havertz and, on one glaring occasion, N’golo Kante, made some odd decisions when a scoring opportunity should have been a formality.
They were a frequent threat up until the kerfuffle in the climax of the first half.
Where do you start with the handball and handbags?
With the indisputable point that Chelsea should have dealt with the schoolyard scramble long before James – after his thigh could not do the job – scooped Sadio Mane’s effort off the line with his arm.
That is the bottom line. Well, along with the fact that once
Anthony Taylor had been told to go to the monitor, a penalty and red card were inevitabilities.
And if you treated yourself to a pint every time someone said it was harsh but rules are rules, you would have needed a taxi home.
Alas, rules ARE rules.
The handball is either deliberate or it is not.
What made it feel particularly tough on James was that he had made a genuinely valiant attempt to deny Mane without using his arm. When he did – instinctively, probably – he paid a lumpy price.
And even those who do not understand the law relating to dismissals would have admitted it WAS a penalty.
Anger
So when it intervened, VAR did its job. Again.
Since its introduction, the bad press VAR has received has been as much down to the laws of the game as to the implementation of the system.
Chelsea’s anger should have been with the rules not with Taylor. Chelsea lost a lead, a player and their heads.
Although he did treat the fourth official to a monologue from behind a cupped hand, Tuchel was one of the calmest Chelsea characters inside a vociferous Anfield.
And considering he probably
knew at half-time Kante had suffered a game-shortening knock, that was impressive.
If there was one thing you knew was going to happen in the second half, it was that the team of ten would be supremely organised.
And they were. Liverpool had plenty of possession, inevitably. They had a good few half-chances, inevitably. But Chelsea defended with intelligence and intensity.
Not in numbers, but they even ventured forward now and again.
In the final reckoning, Chelsea held on to a point with comfort.
And to do that against a team of Liverpool’s title-challenging strength says something everyone probably already knew. Tuchel’s Chelsea, are the real deal.