On Monday night’s emphatic victory over Leicester City at London Stadium, Michail Antonio made history by becoming West Ham’s all-time leading Premier League goalscorer.
The jack of all trades – who only got converted to a full-time striker at the end of the 2019/2020 season by David Moyes – scored his 48th and 49th league goals for the club, surpassing previous record holder and Hammers legend Paolo Di Canio to stand on his own at the top of the charts.
Antonio has been at West Ham since 2015 and has played in a variety of roles for the club but has now nailed down a starting role as a striker and continues to thrive.
Ironically, these two goals, along with Pablo Fornals and Said Benrahma netting one each, also sent West Ham to the top of the Premier League table – a fitting way to celebrate Antonio’s personal accolade.
As for ourselves, we will celebrate by taking a trip back down memory lane and looking at a few of Antonio’s most iconic goals in claret and blue.
Antonio v Southampton – 28th December 2015
After signing for West Ham during the summer of 2015, it took Antonio around half a season for him to cement his place within the first team. And once he broke through, there was no holding him back.
Since Dimitri Payet‘s injury against Everton a month earlier, the Hammers were looking for a new talisman to step up and push them back up the table, having dipped with the absence of their star man.
However, nobody quite expected Antonio to step up in the way he did, and he scored a goal that sums up why he is still so loved in east London six years later.
West Ham were 1-0 down at home to Southampton and was struggling to make a breakthrough before Antonio drove into the box, without even knowing what he wanted to do with the ball, which subsequently saw him tripping over before a Saints defender tried to clear the ball, resulting in it hitting his head and looping over the goalkeeper’s head to level the score.
The Hammers went on to win the game 2-1, and that was the start of a romantic tale between Antonio and the West Ham faithful.