Heading into the summer of 2021, West Ham will have seven of their first team players out of contract and some big decisions will need to be made.
The likes of Mark Noble, Robert Snodgrass, Jack Wilshere, Lukasz Fabianski and Fabian Balbuena will all be out of contract.
Another is Michail Antonio, who joined the Hammers in 2015 from Nottingham Forest for a fee believed to be around £7m and bagged a new contract extension in 2017
When Antonio’s contract is up, he will be 31. That is not old by any stretch of the imagination but for a player with troublesome hamstrings and who relies on his explosiveness over the first five yards of a sprint, it could be defining for his future.
Antonio has been linked with moves away from the club before, especially in the last three years, with Crystal Palace a potential destination. They were reported to be willing to pay £15million for the winger but the Hammers wanted more like £20m-£25million and that was not an option.
Entering the final year of his contract, Antonio certainly couldn’t command that kind of fee now.
According to Transfermarkt, Antonio is worth £8.55million to West Ham if they sold him this summer so they would actually make a small profit on the player they purchased back in 2015 from the Championship.
It would also shift Antonio’s £70,000 a week wages off the books as well at a time when the club needs to try to save money where they can. The £30million shareholders rights issue kicks in imminently as Covid-19 takes hold of the finances in east London.
Antonio is a fan favourite but they are also well aware of his injury issues. He has suffered three hamstring problems over the last two years and they are not usually little hamstring injuries - his most recent one kept him out for four months.
To Antonio’s credit, he has bounced back each and every time to maintain his status as a key player. It took far too long for Manuel Pellegrini to see it, and David Moyes too, but Antonio is an effective second striker alongside Sebastien Haller.
However, Moyes has brought in a player who could play a very similar role to the one Antonio does in Jarrod Bowen, which is a clear indication of where the Scotsman sees the team going forward.
Moyes has consistently preached he wants a young, hungry team to be how he moulds his West Ham team so the likes of Bowen, Declan Rice, Pablo Fornals and Issa Diop should be his linchpins going forward if he can keep a hold of them all. Grady Diangana too when he returns from his loan at West Brom, also the emerging Nathan Holland from the academy.
With a little over 13 months remaining, there haven’t been any noises coming from the club yet that Antonio will have his contract extended. In fairness, the club has shown, in recent years anyway, a preference to take their time with extensions before eventually sealing them.
Moyes has younger options in the position going forward, it is a case of whether he wants to keep the experience of Antonio around. A popular player at the club among the fans as well as players, an exit seems unlikely but that was before the Covid-19 pandemic crippled football.
Boss Moyes has a big decision to make in the coming months over the England international and how he goes forward with, or without, the winger.
