MICHAIL IS HAVING A SPLASHING TIME
THINGS are going swimmingly for West Ham after Michail Antonio’s strike made it three wins and three draws in seven Premier League games. The frontman, working his way back from hamstring injuries, scored early on before dropping to perform a backstroke on the touchline.
The bizarre celebration was the result of a dare from team-mate Declan Rice after beating his pal in a video game contest.
It was a goal that needed enjoying as well after good work from Said Benrahma, Jarrod Bowen and Pablo Fornals set up Antonio.
“As the No.9 I’m expected to score goals and now I’m back I expect it,” said Antonio. His boss David
Moyes was delighted with his striker, and said: “Micky was very good for someone just coming back from injury.
“We’re trying to bring him along slowly and if it had been a bit easier we’d have tried to bring him off earlier.
“But we needed him to worry them and it was important to get another 90 minutes under his belt.
“Micky has shown a great level of robustness in the last six months and hopefully we can get him back to that.”
For their part, Burnley looked like Jay Rodriguez’s return to full match fitness can’t come quickly enough.
They lacked spark going forward and this defeat, coupled with Brighton’s win at Leeds, leaves Sean Dyche’s men just above the drop zone.
Half-time substitute Dwight Mcneil did add a little creativity but it wasn’t enough to ever givewest Ham any real cause for concern.
Dyche said: “It’s a tough one to call in the respect of it was a softer goal than usual for us to concede but I’m not going to question our centre-halves because they were excellent.
“They didn’t have too many other chances apart from at the end, when we were going for it.
“It was just about finding the detail in the front third.
“We kept it well at times but couldn’t find the killer moment and that’s the question mark of our season so far.”
The Hammers were unlucky when Ben Mee kicked the ball on to the impressive Angelo Ogbonna’s head and it hit a post, while Mee cleared a header from Antonio off the line that lacked any real power.
A Mcneil cross hit the bar for Burnley but that was the closest they came to scoring.