Speaking on the Footballer’s Football Podcast, Michail Antonio has been chatting about how the dressing room dynamics change when a new signing arrives, and his experience at West Ham.
Antonio joined the Hammers back in 2015, and sadly, he didn’t get the warmest of receptions when he arrived in east London.
Indeed, Antonio says that on his very first day he came across a player, who he refused to name, who absolutely hated him from the day he arrived until the day he left.
What’s Antonio said?
Antonio told the tale of his first day at West Ham and the unnamed player who hates him.
“On the first day, I’m not going to say this player’s name. I walked into the dining hall and all of the players came to greet me. I sat down and I was asked what position do I play, and this guy said ‘Oh, so you’re here to take my position eh? Taking my position?’ And I said ‘listen, we’re all here to do a job, and that’s what we’re going to do’,” Antonio said.
“He hated me from that day until he left the club. It was crazy. He just couldn’t separate us playing football from me coming to take his job. It was crazy. I’ve seen it throughout my career a little bit, but not to this extent, it was unbelievable.”
Better now
Luckily, it seems as though the atmosphere at West Ham is a lot better now than it was in 2015.
Just look at how the new signings have all settled in very quickly since the arrival of David Moyes. Tomas Soucek was immediately at home, as was Vladimir Coufal, while Jesse Lingard was seemingly a brilliant character behind the scenes.
Luckily for Antonio, the player who disliked him ended up leaving the club, but we can’t imagine it would have been easy for the Jamaican to get that sort of reception.
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