17 January 2021

Michail Antonio hopes to cash in on more opportunities after Burnley goal

17 January 2021

Michail Antonio hopes to continue making a splash for West Ham after getting back among the goals against Burnley.

Antonio, fit again after two months out with a hamstring injury, sank the Clarets with a ninth-minute strike, his first since October.

The 30-year-old forward celebrated by doing the backstroke on the side of the pitch and now wants the rest of the season to go just as swimmingly.

“It was a very good day,” Antonio told the club website. “One thing we worked on in the week was our crossing and the positions we needed to be in and it worked a treat.

“It’s another win, but I felt going forward we could have taken more of our opportunities.

“Defensively, we were unbelievably solid, so moving forward I got a goal, hopefully I can keep scoring and do better and get more goals in the games, not just for me but for all the attacking players.”

Antonio’s latest bizarre celebration was as a result of losing a video game against team-mate Declan Rice.

“With the celebration, basically we were playing Call of Duty and the loser had to do a forfeit and that was my forfeit,” he added.

“I must have done it well, because everyone knows what I was doing, so my acting skills must be quality and maybe I’ve got a job after football.”

Burnley have now failed to score in six of their last seven away games.

Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes started in attack with Matej Vydra and Jay Rodriguez introduced in the second half, to no avail.

“You can work on the training ground, but often strikers will tell you, sometimes they find a goal, sometimes a lucky one, however it comes, and it just clicks again,” said manager Sean Dyche.

“We want to speed that process up obviously, the idea of coaching is to try and speed that situation up.

“We know the four players can operate, we think there’s a nice mix of how we can operate with two strikers, but none of them are quite there at the moment.”

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