West Ham United striker Michail Antonio has made a really big claim about a potential transfer to the top six Premier League clubs.
When Michail Antonio says the ‘top six’ Premier League teams, he’s clearly talking about the original ‘big six’ or so-called ‘greedy six’.
The 34-year-old joined West Ham from Nottingham Forest in the summer of 2015 and has since gone on to become the club’s all-time top Premier League scorer, and more recently, our top bagsman in Europe.
However, Antonio is clearly coming to towards the end of his career, and West Ham are said to be lining up a move to sign Simon Banza to replace him.
This summer may well be the right time for him to move on, and that’s not taking anything away from what he’s given the club over the past nine years.
The Jamaican’s record at West Ham speaks for itself. He has bagged 82 goals and 40 assists in 307 games for us, all whilst playing in different positions (Transfermarkt).
Antonio will go down as a club legend, I’m sure of that. However, things could have been very different it seems…
Michail Antonio makes top six Premier League clubs admission
The former Forest man has always backed himself to reach the very highest level of the game.
He came through non-league football rather than an academy and his unique playing style is evidence of that.
Could the 34-year-old have ever played at the very, very highest level though? It seems like he definitely could have…
When speaking on the High Performance podcast, Antonio responded when asked if he’s ever had the chance to leave West Ham:
“I’ve come very close to leaving. I’ve been at West Ham for nine years. Every single signing I’ve been linked away.”
“That summer came (2016). I had a good stint playing right-back, I had links to top six clubs to play right-back but I didn’t want to play right-back so I refused to do that because I wanted to be a winger”, Antonio said.
When asked if it was every single ‘top six’ club that wanted to sign him, the 34-year-old responded, “I’m talking top six, but it was right-back. I believed I was good enough to be an attacking player in the Premier League. Maybe I would have been financially better but I wouldn’t have enjoyed my football.”
That’s quite the claim from Micky.
In all fairness, he was actually pretty good for us at right-back during the second-half of the 2015/16 season.
However, the fact that the likes of Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester united, Chelsea and Tottenham all wanted to sign him to play in that specific position really is startling.
Antonio obviously didn’t join a top six Premier League club, and has since gone on to become a legend at the London Stadium.
That said, I still fully expect him to be linked away from the club once again this summer.
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