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Football London
Football London
Sport
Kadeem Simmonds

David Moyes makes Michail Antonio point ahead of West Ham's semi-final test against AZ Alkmaar

West Ham United manager David Moyes believes not many centre-halves would want to play against Michail Antonio after his performance against Manchester United.

The Hammers striker was a constant thorn in Erik ten Hag's side on Sunday evening, using his strength and hold-up play to keep defenders Luke Shaw and Victor Lindelof at bay.

Having a goal harshly disallowed as well as not having a penalty given despite being brought down by Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Moyes spoke glowingly about the Jamaica international in the immediate aftermath of the game.

READ MORE: Why West Ham want Newcastle and Liverpool to win their next games amid relegation battle

But speaking ahead of Thursday's semi-final against Dutch outfit AZ Alkmaar, the Scot was quick to point out that Antonio's physicality "might not quite suit" in European competitions.

"Bits of it, are very good. Bits of it, not so good. I don’t think there are many centre-halves that would want to play against Micky Antonio, I think he can be a handful," said Moyes.

"But, I also think maybe European referees might see Mick differently and find that his physicality might not quite suit. These are the sorts of things that we’ve found a little bit as we’ve gone along in Europe, so we need to hope that we can [improve] after the experiences we had last year.

"We went a goal down after two or three minutes here against Frankfurt and we get a player sent off in the second game. We’ve got to try and learn from that, our experiences in Europe. Hopefully, Mick is able to play as well and do as much as he did [against Manchester United]."

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