Forward Michail Antonio is happy with his recent return to first team action and has enjoyed being able to show the West Ham United fans what he can bring to David Moyes’ side once again.
It’s been a long road back to the London Stadium grass for the 33-year-old, who was sidelined through injury since November.
He has had a couple game-changing cameos off the bench for the Hammers, most recently against Burnley on Sunday, but on Thursday night he was given the nod to lead the line against SC Freiburg and played a huge part as West Ham overturned a one-goal deficit to emphatically book their spot in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League.
And Antonio is delighted he’s been able to show his quality after a stop-start season, while insisting he and his teammates are hungry for more European success after getting a taste for it last season.
“I’ve been out for quite a while, and even before that I wasn’t giving the best performances this season, so it’s nice to be out there and putting in good performances,” said Antonio.
“We had to turn it around [against Sevilla before] and we had to make sure we did it again this year. One thing about us in Europe is that we definitely know how to play and know how to go far in it, so hopefully we can do the same as we did last year.
“We are always think about winning it, whenever we get into Europe we believe we can win it. There are a lot of big names out there, but we know how to win games in Europe. We got to the semi-finals two years ago and won the [UEFA Europa] Conference League last year, so hopefully this year we can do it again.
“100 per cent [I feel like we can take on anyone] especially if the second leg is at home, as that’s what you always want, so we can bring it back to our fans. It doesn’t matter if we are losing because we believe when we play here that we can win the game. We have that confidence and we managed to do it again on Thursday
“Many players go through their careers without winning anything, and to achieve something such as winning the Conference League last year gives you that hunger to do it again.”
Antonio, who is West Ham United’s second-highest all-time European goalscorer, admitted the quality within the side is 'frightening' and hopes teams will continue to fear a trip to east London.
“You see the quality he [Mohammed Kudus] has with the first goal that he scored. The boy is special and hopefully we all keep kicking on," Antonio added.
“The quality we have behind me is brilliant. Jarrod [Bowen] bags goals, Kudus also scores goals and Lucas [Paquetá] adds goals, but he is more of an assist man. But what we have going forward is frightening as we have got pace, power, strength, and the ability to score goals.”
