‘Stick it on Alisson’ – Antonio reveals West Ham ploy in Liverpool win
West Ham striker Michail Antonio has revealed how his side targetted Alisson in their win over Liverpool on Sunday.
The Hammers were 3-2 victors over Jurgen Klopp’s men, scoring twice from a corner, and once through a swift counter-attack finished off by Pablo Fornals.
Kurt Zouma scored the third, meanwhile, Alisson turned into his own net early on in the match.
Alisson behind Man Utd trio in worst XI of the PL weekend…
The opener was checked by VAR, and Klopp believed the Brazilian shot-stopper was fouled for the goal.
“What can Alisson do? That is why the goalie is protected. If a player goes up in the air with his arm, it is an important part of the body for the goalkeeper,” he said.
“Each football person in the world would say it’s a foul on Alisson because his arm is taken away from him. Yes – it is a foul.”
However, the goal stood despite Klopp and his players’ disbelief.
And Antonio has revealed that the West Ham game plan was to bombard the former AS Roma ‘keeper.
“The whole plan was to stick it in straight on the keeper and we’ve just challenged,” Antonio admitted (via the Liverpool Echo).
“We saw that they struggle with the ball coming in on them and all we had to do was keep the ball away from Virgil [van Dijk]. It’s worked out for us today.
WE’RE GOING ON AN ADVENTURE! ⚒ #COYI pic.twitter.com/OmZ4F8EOb0
— Michail Antonio (@Michailantonio) November 7, 2021
“We have to give credit to the coaching staff. They have a look at the weaknesses and the strengths of each team we come up against and in different games, we come up with different strategies.
“Today the plan was to push straight on the keeper and today no one marked me on the keeper so I’m there to block him and make sure he can’t come out and catch it. You then saw what happened today: goals.”
Meanwhile, Mark Lawrenson has ‘half-jokingly’ tipped a Manchester United return for Irons boss David Moyes.
Speaking on the future of United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Lawrenson told Off The Ball that Moyes would ‘sort them out’.
“Unless they’re actually going to go and buy a manager, who are you going to get?” he said.
“I just don’t see where they would go. If anybody at the moment, you’d want Moyesey back would you not?
“I’m half-joking, but what I’m saying is you’d have him basically because he would sort all this out.”
