West Ham manager David Moyes insists there is no chance of Michail Antonio leaving the London Stadium this month.
Antonio seems to be angling for a move having this week revealed on The Footballer’s Football Podcast that he has been in contact with other clubs.
The striker said: “Honestly, I’ve not ruled anything out. That’s all I can say, nothing has been ruled out. There are talks so whatever happens, happens.”
But Moyes, who lost new signing Danny Ings to an injury on his debut against Everton last weekend, has no intention of letting West Ham’s all-time top Premier League goalscorer leave.
“Well, it’s not the club talking about Micky Antonio, I think Micky is the one talking about it,” said the Hammers boss.
“Micky said it but we here have got no intention of doing anything. Sometimes players choose to do that, some of them want to go.
“But at the moment we want Mick here, we want him playing well, we want him scoring goals, and we’re happy to have him.”
Losing Ings was a major blow for Moyes, who spent £12million to prise the 30-year-old frontman from Aston Villa in a bid to inject more goals into his side.
Moyes is already without Italian forward Gianluca Scamacca with a knee injury, leaving Antonio as West Ham’s only fit senior striker for Monday’s FA Cup tie at Derby.
“Unfortunately Danny picked up an injury in the first 15 or 20 seconds of the game,” said Moyes.
“We don’t think it’s that bad and he’d be cup-tied on Monday anyway so we’ve got a little bit of grace there.
“Hopefully he’s not going to miss too much. He’s had an injection in his knee and hopefully he can get back quickly.”
Moyes does not expect to go back into the market to replace Ings, however.
“No not really, I think in the main we’ve spent money on Danny which we weren’t necessarily expecting to do but we felt we could add to what we’ve got,” he said.
“At the moment I don’t necessarily see us spending more money, but I don’t want to say that and then you tell me you told me something different because this world changes very quickly.”
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