Michail Antonio: I'm buzzing with two, but could have had a hat-trick!


Michail Antonio could barely have scripted a better return to action than he managed at Burnley on Monday night.

The West Ham United No30 was back in the starting XI after shrugging off the hamstring injury which forced him to miss the last three matches, and he didn't need a second invitation to start firing again.

His quickfire double, finishing off crosses from Vladimír Coufal and Saïd Benrahma, turned the game in West Ham's favour after they fell behind to Chris Wood's early penalty.

The brace - Antonio's eighth and ninth goals of another productive campaign personally - could have become a hat-trick as a series of second half near-misses attested to, but Antonio wasn't getting greedy and he smiled that he was saving the goals for the final four matches of the campaign.

"I'm buzzing to be fair," he said. "It's been a great season. I've over the moon. I'm a bit disappointed not to get a hat-trick, I had chances.

"It wasn't my day to get the hat-trick, but I got my two and I can't be greedy."
 


Antonio felt he had given himself the chance to make his impact after stepping up his work on the training pitch and he was delighted to be able to play his part again.

"I trained with the boys all week so I was always in contention," he explained. "I didn't know if I'd start or not, but I did, managed to get my two goals and should have had more.

"I'll keep moving on to the next game and hopefully score more goals."

Those next games are the Hammers' final four of an already memorable season, and Antonio says with the same work ethic they displayed at Turf Moor, their European dreams could come true.

"One thing you know you're going to get at Turf Moor is a hard, well-fought game," he added.

"If you're not going to fight or work hard, you're not going to win.

"Every boy that plays football dreams about playing in the Champions League. I've been here six years and I think in three of the years we've been battling relegation. This year we're fighting for the top four, it's unbelievable and hopefully we can achieve it.

"It's positive pressure, all we can do is keep going, keep performing and keep scoring goals."
 

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