West Ham United threw away all three points against Crystal Palace at the weekend.
Hammers boss Slaven Bilic sat down for his pre-match press conference today, and opened up on how he has shared numerous conversations with Michail Antonio regarding the role he played in allowing Crystal Palace to score a last gasp equaliser against his side last weekend, as quoted by the club’s official website.
The 27-year-old failed to keep the ball in the corner, and instead chose to cross the ball into the box, from where the Eagles regained possession, before breaking up the pitch and scoring a 97th minute equaliser.
The speedy winger surely deserves some respite from the criticism, however, having been one of West Ham’s best and most consistent performers, since joining the club from Nottingham Forest in the summer of 2015.
And Bilic told reporters how he has shared a few conversations with Antonio about last weeks debacle, insisting that the 27-year-old was not solely to blame, as quoted by WHUFC.com:
“I know that a lot of people in football, when they were analysing that goal, blamed Antonio. I spoke to him a few times and he took the blame for the goal. The irony is that the last ten minutes was he keeping the ball in the corner. Unfortunately we could not stop them. Antonio was the one who was really giving us a breather. In the moment we really needed he unfortunately took the wrong decision.”
Antonio has been ruled out of West ham’s home game against Liverpool on Saturday, after suffering an recurrence of a long standing rib injury, and Bilic will be hoping that whoever stands in for the 27-year-old can offer as much to the team as the former Forest man does.
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