Michail Antonio is what EPL needs now: Neil Humphreys
West Ham striker reminds us that football must still be fun
The English Premier League continues to obsess over the wrong English striker. Harry Kane takes the headlines. Michail Antonio steals your heart.
Right now, we could use more of the latter.
Football is actually rather fun when footballers are honest, spontaneous and real.
Antonio's goal celebration was certainly not spontaneous - the cardboard cut-out of himself had been prepared before kick-off - but there was nothing inauthentic about his joy.
While he kissed his own image, he was kissing the sky on behalf of all of us.
Extreme goal celebrations have been planned, staged and repeated in every childhood bedroom at some point, but Antonio actually made it happen. He lived out a fantasy during a reality that's generally so grim at the moment, we'll take all the moments of levity we can get.
David Moyes, being the professional manager of West Ham United, didn't approve of his striker celebrating his record-breaking goal by kissing a cardboard cut out, but Antonio didn't care.
Nor did the rest of us.
Modern football is typically a production line of dull, cliche-spouting automatons, wheeled out in front of a camera to point out their intentions to go one game at a time, to think only about the next game, as if they are incapable of free thought at all.
Of course, they are. But they are programmed otherwise, mostly for their own protection. Say anything mildly embarrassing and it's a meme. Say anything vaguely controversial and it's a social media meltdown.
DIVIDE
Detached robots are perhaps required in our polarised climate of incessant rage. It's safer. But it's also artificial, further creating a divide between the average fan and that cold presence on screen.
Antonio is the antithesis of this safety-first approach, expressing himself openly and honestly. When he scored his 48th and 49th league goals in the 4-1 win against Leicester City - overtaking Paolo di Canio to become West Ham's highest EPL goalscorer - he was going to perform a Dirty Dancing routine with his cardboard image. And why not?
When he subsequently got the movie name wrong in an interview, he mocked himself later, reaffirming his empathetic connection with those neglected folks paying his wages.
The 31-year-old has been labelled everything from an oddball to an outlier, someone at the extreme end of social norms, when the opposite applies. In an industry obsessed with "special ones", he's the normal one. He is us.
His career started at non-league Tooting & Mitcham United and his nomadic journey took him to different clubs (Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest), via different positions (winger, right-back) before ending up as West Ham's No. 9.
He outlasted ex-Hammers forwards with bigger profiles through sheer perseverance, seizing an unlikely opportunity in the autumn of his career to take centre stage without ever losing perspective or humility.
Of course, Antonio's joie de vivre has not been without its pitfalls. In December 2019, he crashed his Lamborghini into a stranger's house on Christmas Day - while dressed as a snowman.
It's the snowman bit that probably irritated Moyes, who returned to the club four days later. Just as the West Ham manager wasn't overly keen on his striker's exuberant "kiss and yell" celebration either.
But Moyes has unexpectedly turned a burly utility man into a complete centre-forward in his early 30s. An impressive 22 of Antonio's league goals have come in the 42 appearances since Moyes arrived.
The only thing that hasn't changed is the genial striker's deep gratitude for his good fortune and that constant eagerness to please an audience.
At a time when EPL footballers are expected to conduct themselves as if facing a firing squad, Antonio remains a tongue-flapping puppy who cannot believe he gets thrown a bone every week.
Giggling for the cameras, he underlined his ambition to win this season's Golden Boot. He may not succeed, but he'll make us smile along the way.
And that'll do nicely for now.
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