‘Told me’: Antonio shares what Man City’s players were saying on the pitch after beating West Ham on Sunday

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Michail Antonio started in attack for West Ham United as they were beaten 2-0 by Manchester City on Sunday.

Pep Guardiola’s side started their defence of the Premier League title and won the game with a double from new-boy Erling Haaland.

Last season, they found life much harder at the London Stadium, going 2-0 down at half-time thanks to a Jarrod Bowen brace.

They came back to draw 2-2 that day, and nearly blew their title challenge, which was clearly playing on their minds this weekend.

Antonio speaks out on West Ham 0-2 Manchester City

On the most recent episode of the Footballer’s Football Podcast, Antonio shares what some City players said to him on the pitch about Guardiola’s tactics after the game.

He said: “I spoke to a couple of their players.

“They said to me that how they set up and how they were playing was to counter our counter attackers. To shut it down so we couldn’t counter them so quickly.

“Over the last couple of seasons we’ve been able to counter them quite quickly and they have struggled, whereas this game their tactics worked to a tee. We struggled to get out.”

West Ham weren’t helped by the fact that their central defensive options were decimated by injuries and Kurt Zouma also picked up an issue during the game.

Stopping the likes of Haaland is hard enough with a full-strength side, let alone when Ben Johnson is playing out of position at centre-back.

West Ham face Nottingham Forest next up, in a game which sees Antonio get the chance to score against his former club.

Jesse Lingard will also be coming up against the Hammers, which adds an extra dimension to the match as well.