JUBILANT Michail Antonio believes West Ham will solely get greater and higher after profitable their first main trophy in 43 years.
The Jamaican ahead joked his personal celebrations could final for 3 weeks as he lifted a second piece of silverware in his profession — after the 2010 Johnstone’s Paint Trophy with Southampton.
Hammers’ heroes Angelo Ogbonna, Maxwel Cornet, Nayef Aguerd, Kurt Zouma and Michail Antonio are trying ahead to some prolonged partyingCredit score: Rex
Frontman Michail Antonio claims Europa Convention League glory is simply the beginning in a spree of success for ‘huge’ membership West HamCredit score: Alamy
Tens of hundreds of Hammers followers made the journey to the Czech Republic and much more lined the streets for the house parade in East London final night time.
Though they completed 14th within the Premier League after battling relegation, the membership might be getting ready for the Europa League subsequent season as they’re parachuted straight into pot one for the group levels.
Antonio mentioned: “How large is that this membership? It’s huge. You possibly can see by the stadium, we maintain greater than 60,000.
“However I really feel like we might simply promote out the stadium three or 4 instances ourselves.
“Transferring ahead, this isn’t the place we’re going to cease.
“We’ll see if we are able to preserve carrying it on and preserve pushing ourselves and doing higher.
“Final 12 months we received to the semi-finals of the Europa League. This 12 months, we gained the Europa Convention League.
“You possibly can see we’ve an excellent pack of boys right here. We now have received good confidence and hopefully we are able to construct on that.”
Kicked all through by Fiorentina defenders, Antonio was bleary-eyed when he lastly emerged from the dressing room at 2am within the bowels of the Fortuna Enviornment.
Requested how the celebrations had been, a few of which was streamed dwell on Instagram by the gamers, he joked: “There was a little bit of every little thing.
“A little bit of dancing, a little bit of ingesting, a little bit of one thing I can’t say! It has been a pleasure clearly.
“For 58 years, West Ham have waited for this second in Europe.
“It has been wonderful, an important expertise, in all probability the most effective season I’ve had since I’ve been at West Ham.”
Antonio has needed to graft so as to win a primary main trophy of his profession, from beginning in non-league with Tooting and Mitcham to plenty of mortgage spells — together with stints within the EFL with Cheltenham, Colchester and Sheffield Wednesday.
The 33-year-old added: “Earlier than the sport, one of many issues I mentioned to the boys was that folks don’t get many alternatives like this.
“Many footballers play soccer and don’t win a single factor of their complete careers.
“There are some high quality gamers who’ve performed that as nicely.
“It’s an important alternative, We had to ensure we didn’t miss out — and we didn’t!”