West Ham United’s Michail Antonio ‘plans to mock Callum Wilson’ with a celebration should he score against Newcastle United on Saturday.
Michail Antonio has become a fan favourite with for not just goals, but it’s his iconic celebrations that have turned him into a undisputed cult hero at the club.
The Jamaica international, who has scored nine times in 28 games so far this season, says he has big plans for goal number 10 – which he hopes will come against the Magpies this weekend.
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Speaking to striker Callum Wilson on the Footballer’s Football Podcast, Antonio revealed plans to mock his co-host if he scores on Saturday.
“It is definitely going to be a hard game with the way you guys have performed in the past few weeks, you see the resilience in your team, and we’ve shown that as well,” the Hammers forward said.
“We’ve basically gotten things even though we’ve not performed at our best.
“Three points are needed to be fair, we’re going for this fourth spot so we can’t let up.
“We have to go for it, and as much as I like you and the relationship that we’ve built on this podcast, we can’t let up, and if I score this weekend I will throw up a ‘W’ for you.”
Wilson is currently sidelined after injuring his calf and isn’t expected to return to the Newcastle setup until the final few weeks of the season.
Two months ago, Michail Antonio revealed that he had an X-rated West Ham celebration planned in the hope of joining an exclusive club in the near future.
In the past few years, we’ve seen him pull out the worm move, made a Homer Simpson impression, do the Matrix, go all Gangnam style, do circles with a cardboard cut out, and even stroked the carpet around the London Stadium pitch.
Antonio has his sights set on the next big milestone of joining the Premier League 100 club.
When he hits that target, he’s told the Footballer’s Football podcast that he has an X-rated West Ham celebration planned.
“It’s one of those things that as soon as you get one milestone you’ve got to always try and reach for the next,” Antonio said on the Footballer’s Football podcast on BBC Sounds.
“Getting (past) that 50 (mark) is unbelievable because obviously so many people play and don’t reach there, it’s a great achievement, especially for me (because) I started playing right-back.
“I’m now pushing for that 100 zone, I want to get that ton. Because why not? Why can’t I achieve it?
“If I got to 100 I’m taking all my clothes off – I’ll keep my slips on obviously, I don’t want to get arrested – I’m taking all my clothes off, I’m running around in my slips mate, I get to 100 I run around in my slips, 100 per cent, get that yellow card. Don’t matter what stage of the game it is, I’m doing it.”
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Explaining his celebrations
He poked home ahead of Spurs superstar Harry Kane to give the Hammers another brilliant victory over their rivals.
On reenacting the ‘bullet time’ scene from 1999 film The Matrix, he tweeted: “Must be a glitch in the Matrix, I’m getting deja vu! Another big big win!!!!!”
He later explained the origin: “Well, last week I put a picture up on Instagram marked ‘AntoNEO’ and it went well to be fair so I thought ‘you know what I’m going to have to do it today!’
“When I was doing it I worried someone was going jump on me and I’d tear my ACL. Someone pulled me up before they jumped on me so it was decent.”
Antonio marked West Ham’s first match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium by scoring the winning goal, followed by a rather odd jumping and hip thrusting move.
He said: “There’s this guy on Instagram, Danrue, that does crazy dance moves.
“I saw it the other day and I’ve been busting it out in a couple of clubs so time to bring it out on the pitch. It lets me show my personality.”
When Antonio scored the winner against Sunderland, his celebration struck a chord with fans of cartoon favourite The Simpsons.
Antonio spun around on the floor, much like Homer when he won the battle of wills with Mr Burns to restore employees’ dental plan at the Springfield nuclear power plant.
Fair to say he was absolutely loving being able to pull this one off exactly how it was meant to, it could have gone embarrassingly wrong.
He scored twice in the final ten minutes of West Ham’s 4-1 win over Leicester in August.
After slamming in his first and West Ham’s third, Antonio danced with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of himself to recognise becoming the club’s top Premier League goalscorer.
That time he was inspired by Dirty Dancing, saying: “I wanted to be Baby!”
Explaining this celebration, he added: “Live on Sky Sports, I got distracted and said it was ‘Save the Last Dance’! Obviously with all the emotion of everything, I said the wrong movie!
“I wanted to be Baby [from Dirty Dancing] and I wanted to run to someone and for them to lift me up.
“94kg? I don’t really see it! Instead of getting someone to lift me up and make me Baby, I decided to lift myself up and treat myself as Baby, you know!”
Doing the Carlton went down a hit but that wasn’t actually what he had planned.
He said: “I completely forgot my celebration that I had planned.
“I had planned it so much and it was going to be the worm, but the emotion of scoring got to me and I ended up doing the Carlton Dance.”
West Ham’s Michail Antonio scored and broke out The Carlton 😂: https://t.co/P2uJFbZ8Cc pic.twitter.com/zqMGI6CIvY
— SB Nation (@SBNation) March 2, 2016
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