Skipper Mark Noble felt the win against Bournemouth, who had Harry Arter sent off eight minutes before Antonio’s goal, illustrated the determination and grit in West Ham’s injury-hit squad.
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Injuries further up the pitch to Andy Carroll, Dimitri Payet and Andre Ayew meant the 26-year-old was back in his preferred role on the flank against Bournemouth on Sunday.
Antonio scuffed wide at the end of a rare incisive West Ham attack and it was 39 minutes before Bournemouth goalkeeper Artur Boruc was finally called into action to keep out an Enner Valencia strike at his near post.
Whatever happens now in the career of Michail Antonio, who has journeyed from non-League to -Premier League in one of those -uplifting sporting stories, his name will be writ large in the history of West Ham United.
West Ham are improving every year but they’ve still had L/L HT/FT defeats in over half of their trips to top-four finishers over the past few seasons.
Good interlinking play, with the new arrivals including Tore, Calleri, Arthur Masuaka and Havard Nordtvelt all looking to have settled quickly into their new set-up.
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Tore became the first player to provide an assist in the Olympic stadium and setup his first goal in his first Premier League game for the Hammers in the process. Chelsea on Monday, we didn’t get back from Romania until 5am on Friday morning.
Sofiane Feghouli says he was inspired to choose West Ham because of the “fighting spirit” of the club. Hopefully he’ll be back in December, so we are going to try to get one if possible. “It’s the first one that burns”, Howe said. If we lose our discipline we could have a flurry of red cards.
“I think the way we played in the second half, (we) should not be scared of anyone”, said the Dutchman.
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Coming off the back of a 2-1 loss to Chelsea on the opening day, the Hammers were looking forward to getting their top-flight campaign up and running, especially after the disappointing 1-1 draw to Astra Giurgiu in their Europa League qualifier first-leg in mid-week.
