{"id":621601,"date":"2026-09-11T17:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T17:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621601\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T17:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T17:04:08","slug":"michail-antonio-ex-west-ham-striker-joins-watford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621601\/","title":{"rendered":"Michail Antonio: Ex-West Ham striker joins Watford"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watford have announced the signing of former West Ham United striker Michail Antonio on a free transfer.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old made his final senior appearance for the Hammers in their 3-1 defeat by Leicester City on 3 December 2024, suffering a broken leg four days later in a car crash.<\/p>\n

Antonio last played in April for Qatari side Al-Sailiya and made a total of four appearances for the club. He had been training with Alessio Dionisi’s Hornets for the past month and has joined on a one-year deal.<\/p>\n

“Watford is a big club and hopefully I can come in and bring success and help wherever I can.” Antonio told the club’s website., external<\/a><\/p>\n

The deal for the Jamaican international has been announced pending international clearance that would allow him to be part of the squad for Saturday’s Championship home match with Stoke City.<\/p>\n

After being released by the Hammers in June 2025 following a 10-year spell, Antonio returned to the club as part of his rehabilitation and played two games for the under-21 side in Premier League 2.<\/p>\n

He trained with Leicester City last December and had also been close to a move to Brentford but sustained a torn calf muscle the day before he was set to sign for the Bees, which scuppered the deal.<\/p>\n

Prior to his move to West Ham in September 2015, Antonio played in the EFL for clubs including Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n

Antonio, who will wear the number 18 shirt at Vicarage Road, is Watford’s 12th signing of the summer. <\/p>\n

The Hornets are 12th in the league, having won two, drawn two and lost two of their first six games under Dionisi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watford have announced the signing of former West Ham United striker Michail Antonio on a free transfer. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-621601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}