Michail Antonio says West Ham United are ‘learning a new way to play’ and it will take time for Julen Lopetegui’s philosophy to translate into consistent performances and results.
Antonio scored on his second appearance under the Head Coach in Saturday’s 3-1 Stateside Cup defeat by Crystal Palace in Florida – the second time he has found the net in the United States this summer after his Copa América strike for Jamaica against Ecuador in late June – and got welcome pre-season minutes in his legs in hot and humid conditions.
The 34-year-old has already stated his desire to fight for regular minutes under Lopetegui, and his all-round performance and work-rate at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa earned recognition from the Spaniard.
However, the overall display was a work in progress and defensive errors meant it was Palace, and not the Hammers, who return to London with the silverware.
Antonio said: “I’m obviously disappointed by the result, but we’re seeing some positive signs as obviously we’re changing the philosophy, changing the tactics, changing how we played from last season, so things are going to take us time to build up for us to learn how we want to play, so we can take a lot of positives from the game and keep moving forward.
“Conceding in 40 seconds is a bit crazy, and it was a bit of a mad start, but after that we kind of took control of the game. Obviously they had some good opportunities, I’m not going to be blind to that, as they probably created more chances than us, but possession-wise I thought we had a lot of possession and had a lot of the ball and pressed them quite well.
“It was just a few mistakes that made us concede goals, but I just don’t want anyone to panic, really. We’re learning a new way to play. We’re showing that we can start pressing high and sometimes people are going to find pockets and play through us, but there were a lot of positives and we keep moving forward to the season.
“Two weeks is a long time away from families and stuff like that, so now we’ll get back and see them and concentrate on the Premier League. We’ve got one more game before that and hopefully we can get a positive result.”
Antonio concluded by thanking the American members of the Claret and Blue Army for turning out in numbers during the two-week Stateside Cup Tour, welcoming the players wherever they have been in Tampa and Jacksonville and places in between.
“You don’t realise how big West Ham is until you start travelling,” the No9 enthused. “Everywhere I’ve been on holiday or anywhere I’ve met West Ham fans.
“As the fans say every day, West Ham are massive!”
