Michail Antonio opens up on mental health, his crash, Moyes’ response to day off request for funeral

Michail Antonio opens up on his mental health, his crash, and David Moyes’ response to a request made for a day off to attend a funeral.

Ahead of his new book ‘Humans not Robots: when elite sport and real life collide’ being released, the former West Ham player joined Mark & Nedum on the latest episode of The Sports Agents.

Michail spoke on a range of topics, including ‘major decisions which he feels contributed to the club’s decline in recent years; the controversial move to the London stadium, club training facilities, the appointment of Graham Potter as manager and how the club handled his exit last year following a very public car accident.’

Timestamps –
0:00 Intro
2:19 Pep Guardiola leaving Man City
5:18 West Ham relegation
15:04 From Boleyn Ground to London Stadium
17:25 Jarrod Bowen World Cup omission
22:36 Michail Antonio mental health

Mark: “Were you telling anybody what you were going through or was the environment such that you didn’t feel you could tell anybody what you were going through?”

Michail: “So I don’t, you can’t really for me I didn’t want to go into the club and tell people that I’m struggling. I’m not going to lie.

“Like I did speak to my physio. He was the person who told me to go into therapy. But like I mainly spoke to like my brother and family members but then when you speak to your brothers and family members you they kind of want to give you an answer, want to give you an opinion.

“And sometimes that’s not what you want. You just want someone to listen and hear you. And that’s what you get with therapy. Like I didn’t realise that therapy was so important. It’s one thing that I’ve only realised now.

“I thought therapy was only for people who were going crazy. It wasn’t until I started therapy. Oh, maybe I was going slightly crazy. You never know, you know? But like I thought it was for people who’s going crazy, but I went in there and started offloading and speaking to them and they never gave me an answer.

“They just said, ‘How does that make you feel’ or ‘Why did you do that?’ Or these are the questions that makes it indulge within yourself. So you have to think of them answers yourself and find by yourself finding these answers you get results instead of someone else giving you an answer. It’s like the easy way out.

“So a lot of time when you get when you go for the easy way out you never fulfilled but you working through it yourself. You start to feel fulfilled and you start feel like you’ve got the answer and you can start moving forwards.”

Nedum: Were there times where you looked back and thought that with different eyes you wish you could have done something differently or was it just a case of understanding that’s who you were in that moment?

Michail: It’s understanding that who you were in that moment because I’m not going to lie, I’m a person that never believed in going back in time and changing anything because if I did that something to change in my life that’s now and I’m happy where I am now. I feel like my pathway has always been driven by God and God’s helped me get to where I am. So, there’s been a lot of mistakes. I say I’ve made a lot of mistakes during my career and during my life, but where I am now and what I’m doing now, it’s because of those mistakes. It shaped me to the person I am now.

Nedum: From the parts of the book which I’ve read so far, the physio that knew something was wrong of you the day after the Conference League final.

Michail: Josh Ewens, he came to me and it was after the Conference League final. It was the day of the Conference League final and all the boys were going out and I was a bit of a party boy. I said it to everybody when any big occasion I was like I want to have a drink.

Mark: After you’d won the Conference League final?

Michail: Yeah.

Michail Antonio said in a recent interview that when his father passed,he asked David Moyes for the day off on the day of his funeral

Moyes responded by asking him to still attend training in the morning, which meant he could only attend the burial

WTF🤢 pic.twitter.com/3ymNnEEmNs

— The 44 ⚽️ (@The_Forty_Four) May 29, 2026

Mark: I was thinking boy it’s interesting from David Moyes to allow you to go on the lash the afternoon before you anyhow but yes because this is a really emotional part of the book. So you you just to back it up slightly, you you win the Conference League and your wife comes down, who will be your ex-wife with your kids and gives you the kids, but because of a conversation the two of you have, then that completely changes your mindset.

Michail: Yeah. Basically, what happened was we were going through stuff at the time. We weren’t actually together at the time, but she she’s come over with the kids, so my kids could be there. And then something’s happened at the game. We’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding and where I was such on a high it kind of brought me down because life just kicked back in because in that moment I was already struggling up until that stage and blah blah blah. So it just literally it was like a flood hit me and all life has come back to me. It was like realising that, okay, you might have won the Conference, but you’ve got all this rubbish that you still need to deal with. So, it just came to me and I sat in the change rooms. I was like, no, I’m going to have a couple of drinks and see if I can like not shake this off. I had like four drinks, couldn’t shake it. Gone to the after party with where all the families and stuff were. Couldn’t shake it. On the coach now, everyone’s getting off to go because Vlad and Tomas has sorted a night out for the boys. And Vlad’s come to me directly because I normally sort all the nights out for the boys and sort everything out. He’s like, “Mikey, you sort all these nights out for us and we’re there. We enjoy ourselves. Let me do something for you where you don’t have to worry about planning or do anything. Let me do it for you.” But I was there fast asleep. So he’s like woken me up. And literally I’ve gone to Vlad, I was like, ‘I honestly do not have the energy’. Obviously I didn’t tell him what was going on with me. I said, ‘I just don’t have the energy to do it. I can’t do it.’ And he was there going, ‘Mikey, no. Come on.’ Like, ‘You have to.’ And then I’ve just basically gone, ‘Bloody, no. I’ve turned over.’ And I put my head back on the thingy. And then that’s when he said it. He’s like, Josh has gone to me, ‘I could see it’. He’s like, ‘You didn’t look tired or exhausted from football. You just look exhausted from life.’ And I just got back to the hotel. I went back to my room.

Mark: Did the club have someone you could talk to? Because I’ve had these discussions with players before and I’m not talking about the sport psychologist and but I’m talking about a a therapist, a counselor, whatever you want to call them. Would the would the club have had someone that you could talk to or which is what some players say that would then start people whispering if you then go into a therapist room or a counselor’s room within the confines of a club.

Michail: There is someone there there like most clubs now have therapists and people around the club to speak to people but I just felt more comfortable doing it more external rather in the club because end of the day if anything you say is a possibility it could go back to somebody then go back to the club and no one wants to mess with their opportunity of playing games so I prefer doing things external even though I did let someone know in the club that I was struggling. But then on the other side, on the flip side of things, it doesn’t really make a difference because as long as you are performing on the pitch, most people do not care what’s going on in your life. Like you could be going through the most difficult times. Like I said, I, my dad passed in 2020 and it was coming up to my dad’s funeral and I told David Moyes that my dad’s funeral was happening. They had training on the day. I asked for the day off. He asked me if I can come in and train in the morning and just go to the burial. Like these are the things. Obviously, we were fighting for relegation at the time, but these are the things that you deal with naturally. Like, it’s and it’s not just me. A few other boys have been through that type of stuff as well. Like, no one cares about what’s going on in your personal life as long as you are performing on that pitch.

Mark: When they don’t want you, they don’t want you.

Michail: They don’t want you. You get discarded. Like, I played for 10 years at West Ham. 10 years. The week before my car crash, I started the game. On the Monday after Monday, I was starting against Wolves. I had the accident on the Saturday. Obviously didn’t play for the rest of that season and I get released in the summer. It wasn’t like I was a player who was on the bench like a squad player coming in and out. No, for 10 years straight I was starting if I was fit. Obviously, a couple times they tried to sign other people to get rid of me, but it wasn’t working out. Yeah. So, for 10 years straight, I played for that club. I was going…

Mark: Did they give you a chance to prove your fitness after the car crash?

Michail: No. So, I obviously trained every now and then with them. I had a feeling, I’m not going to lie, I had a feeling that they were going to do something. So, I kind of pushed myself to get back. Like when I was training, I still had a bit of a limp. It wasn’t until August where my limp kind of went. So, I always had a bit of a limp. So, I wasn’t looking the best in training, but I know like I needed to train. I needed to play a game for Jamaica just in case they didn’t do something. Just in case they didn’t offer me a contract, which they didn’t do in the end.

Mark: It just on the car crash. Are you lucky to be here?

Michail: 100%. I looked at that car and it was only reason why I’m here is because of God. Like even the guy at the pound, he came to me and he’s like, I’ve seen cars with half the damage of your car and those people haven’t survived.

Mark: How does that make you feel?

Michail: To be fair, when I saw the car myself in person, like it really hit me in the gut. Like tears were falling from my eyes. like it was a realisation that I shouldn’t be here, but obviously God’s made his own decision and kept me here.

Mark: Has that changed your perspective on life?

Michail: 100%. Before I used to push things back a lot, be like to people, ‘I’ll do it later. I’ll do that another time.’ Now I’m more like I needs to be done cuz tomorrow is not promised to anybody.