West Ham United forward Michail Antonio feels his side deserved better than to come away from Arsenal with only a narrow defeat for their efforts.
The Hammers went into Saturday afternoon’s game in north London with wind in their sails after a fine 3-1 win over Southampton last weekend.
They duly set about their task showing similar intent at Emirates Stadium, creating some fine first-half chances in particular for the likes of Antonio and Sebastien Haller.
A more even contest ensued after the interval but, with West Ham unable to provide the finishing touch to some promising moves, it was left to Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette to slam home a somewhat harsh, VAR-awarded winner.
With the performances that we've been giving, if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll easily finish in the Premier League
Michail Antonio
Despite the defeat, Antonio believes that, should the Irons repeat the standard of their showing in their nine remaining league games, they will prove more than capable of securing their Premier League status.
“I feel that we played very well today and had some good opportunities that we didn’t take,” West Ham's No30 explained.
“We took our chances against Liverpool and our chances against Southampton, but today [Saturday] we didn’t take them, and we got punished for it.
“Obviously, we brought the performances we gave against Liverpool and Southampton into this week, but we just didn’t take opportunities when we had them.
“With the games that are coming up, and the performances that we've been giving, if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll easily finish in the Premier League.”
Lacazette’s late winner was a cruel blow to West Ham who could – and in truth maybe should – have led at that stage.
After creating so many opportunities, Antonio was understandably disappointed that the result was not befitting of his side’s performance, but believes their display at least demonstrated their collective belief.
“Our defenders did unbelievably today. The strikers are just going to have to take it on board and be better,” he observed. “There were opportunities for us, of course, which we didn’t take, and we got punished for it in the end.
“We believed that we could come here and get three points and you can see from our performance that, if we’d have taken our opportunities, we would have had them.”
West Ham will look to put the result behind them and look forward to next Sunday 15 March, when they host Wolverhampton Wanderers at London Stadium.
