This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…
Claret and Hugh are reporting that West Ham are set to offer Michail Antonio a new deal which will keep him at the club until 2023.
What’s the story?
The 29-year-old already has a deal that will see him stay with the Hammers until 2021.
However, it is believed that the London Stadium outfit have a two-year extension option, and it is understood they are likely to utilise it.
Worrying trend
There is no doubting that £10.8m-valued Antonio – as per Transfermarkt – has been a good performer for West Ham. In 136 games, he has 29 goals and 18 assists, and even though those stats don’t jump off the page, his work-rate has been a nuisance to many a Premier League defence.
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However, extending his contract would make little sense, and that is unfortunately down to his inability to stay fit. Only once has he managed to feature in more than 30 matches in the top flight in one campaign, and that has been down to a number of injuries.
According to Transfermarkt, he has already had six separate issues since joining from Nottingham Forest in 2015, which have caused to him miss 36 games. And that does not include every spell on the sidelines, such as the one he suffered this term which has already seen him miss two-and-a-half months.
He is not the only injury-prone West Ham player to be offered a new deal. Winston Reid was given a new contract in 2017 that will keep him at the club until 2023, even though he himself had suffered eight injuries during his time as a Hammer at the time. Less than a year later, in March 2018, he suffered a knee injury and has not played for the club since.
Manuel Lanzini is another who has been consistently on the sidelines during his time with West Ham. He was still suffering from a cruciate ligament rupture until January of this year, yet he was offered a new deal in August. Irons fans may not have have been too surprised to see him be ruled out until the New Year with a shoulder issue.
Those two, just like Antonio, are valuable members of the team when they are able to play, but what is the point in having them on such long contracts if they are unable to regularly take the field? In essence, West Ham would be burning money here once again – this is a deal that is worth avoiding.
Meanwhile, West Ham fans react to this injury update.
