Michail Antonio never had any doubt that Jarrod Bowen would do a good job as a striker.

Over the past few years, West Ham have tried and failed to sign a successful replacement for Michail Antonio. Sebastian Haller, Gianluca Scamacca and Danny Ings have failed to prove their worth in claret and blue, leaving Antonio to lead the line.

Surprisingly though, West Ham finally seem to have found their successor to the Jamaican through Jarrod Bowen. The Hammer’s Conference League hero has done an excellent job upfront this season, scoring 17 goals across all competitions. 

Despite seemingly stealing his place in the first XI, Antonio acknowledges just how brilliant the Englishman has been and says that he knew he would make an excellent striker.

“To be fair, Jarrod’s always been quite a strong guy,” he told The Mirror. “He always comes in anyway and plays a bit everywhere. He said he’s played up front before, so he definitely believes in his ability and knows he can play across the line.”

“And we all know how well Jarrod can score goals, so he gets an opportunity and he takes it. He’s just a quality player and I’m not surprised he’s doing well up front.”

“One thing with football and quality teams is you need to have a mixture and you need to have people be able to play where, when one player’s not playing another player can come in and do the job,” he concluded. “That’s how teams do well in the Premier League.”

However, the Hammer’s 5-0 win over Freiburg clearly demonstrated that Antonio can still do an unbelievable job for the club, as he was key to unlocking their defence time and time again. If they have him, Bowen, Kudus and Paqueta firing on all cylinders it is going to be extremely difficult for any team to cope with West Ham’s attack.