Michail Antonio has said he’s amazed by what has been said about one particular Manchester City player recently.
The West Ham United striker has faced off against many City players throughout his career.
Now though, the Hammers attacker has found himself defending one specific City player after a pundit shared some significant criticism of him.
Antonio baffled by pundit’s comments on City star
Speaking in a recent edition of The Footballer’s Football Podcast, Antonio had this to say about Roy Keane’s comments likening Haaland to a League Two player after his performance against Arsenal.
He said: “People could just call Roy Keane a brute when he plays. People will always have their opinions on things. If you are just going to mark someone on one thing that they don’t do, then everyone is terrible.
“When Roy Keane was playing someone could just call him a brute, he’s a chopper. People only know him for going in for challenges. But end of the day he still had his qualities and was in a quality team as well, and he had to be in a quality team because of the qualities he had.
“The fact that Haaland has been brought in and the records that he smashed last year, you can’t call a guy a League Two player the following season. It makes no sense. But Roy Keane is known for these comments, these crazy comments.”
After scoring 86 goals in 89 appearances for Borussia Dortmund, the striker joined City back in the 2022 summer transfer window in a deal worth £51m.
Since then, the 23-year-old has found the back of the net 81 times in 88 games for Pep Guardiola’s side across all competitions, winning the Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League, UEFA SuperCup and FIFA Club World Cup.
At the end of his record-breaking debut season at the Etihad Stadium, the £375k-per-week centre-forward, who Keane thinks is a League Two-level player, was named as UEFA’s Best Player in Europe and came second in the 2023 Ballon d’Or rankings.
Taking all of that into account, we agree with Antonio that the levels Haaland has reached in terms of goalscoring at City vastly diminishes the level of criticism Keane has for the other parts of the striker’s overall game.
