“Dougie Freedman was blocking my transfers, so I texted him that he wasn’t my manager I’d be playing for myself. Within two days I was at West Ham” Michail Antonio on dark arts that got him his Premier League move
What’s a footballer to do when he has a great move on the table and his manager won’t let him go?
It’s a position that many professional players find themselves in at some stage or another – and for Michail Antonio, it was particularly frustrating given his chairman and manager were at odds as to whether to sell him or not.
Antonio was plying his trade at troubled Nottingham Forest in the Championship at the time, and his sudden consistency at the age of 25 after years of up-and-down performances had landed him on the radar of a few top-flight clubs.
‘West Ham came in and Forest weren’t answering their calls’
Antonio told FourFourTwo: “I had the players around me and everything just clicked.
“I found what I’d needed before that, when I hadn’t been consistent – I’d have a great game, I’d be a nine out of 10, then the next game I’d be a two or a three. At Forest and West Ham, I found the consistency to be seven out of 10 in every game.”
Antonio’s performances inevitably attracted the attention of Premier League clubs – but actually getting Forest to allow him to take one of those moves was more difficult than he would have liked and left him feeling like he was forced to take matters into his own hands.
He explained: “All I wanted for my entire career was to get to the Premier League, but Dougie Freedman was the Forest manager – he had the same agency as me, and kept telling me and the agency that he’d help me to get out.
“I believed him – but then I found out West Brom had put a bid in and the club had turned it down.
“Then West Ham came in and Forest weren’t answering their calls. I said, ‘Look, you’re not answering any calls, I’m one of the lowest-paid players at the club, either double my wages or let me go – I don’t mind playing in the Premier League on less money, because my dream is to get there’.
“They couldn’t increase my wages because they were under an embargo, and [Freedman] kept blaming the owner Fawaz [Al Hasawi], saying he didn’t want to let me go. But Fawaz needed the money to get out of the embargo, so I just thought ‘I’m pretty sure [Fawaz] wants to sell me.’
” One day, I went into the training ground and was like, ‘Gaffer, West Ham are going to put a bid in today and I need you to accept it’.
“Later, as I was about to go home for the day, Fawaz walked in and I said, ‘Mr Chairman, can I have a chat? Dougie, Fawaz is here, we might as well have a meeting together now’.
“Dougie had a face of thunder. I found out he was blocking the deal because he couldn’t sign anyone and I was his best player. He was trying to stop my dreams, for himself.
“Later, I sent him a long text saying, ‘If I’m at this club, don’t tell me any tactics, don’t talk to me, I’ll be out on that pitch playing for myself – you won’t be my manager, I’ll be out there managing myself’.
“Within two days I was at West Ham.”
