JULEN LOPETEGUI is confident Michail Antonio will recover to play for West Ham again.
The Hammers striker, 34, suffered a broken leg and various other injuries after a horror crash in his Ferrari FF near Theydon Bois in Epping.
Antonio was airlifted to a London hospital last Saturday following the crash before being quickly operated on.
West Ham team-mates, as well as his manager, have visited the forward in hospital this week.
And Lopetegui is confident the club’s all-time top Premier League scorer will recover.
He said: “The most important thing is that he’s alive, he’s good.
“He broke his femur, but he’s going to recover for sure.
“He’s going to need time. It’s about time.
“Now it’s about time but the good news is that he has time because when you see the car was terrible, the accident, that’s why we are happy.
“Because in the end, despite the fact we are unhappy because we lost one very important player for us, we are happy because he’s going to be ready.
“Now he’s strong, he’s recovered himself in the next month for sure and he’s going to be ready to be a player.
“The first thing is to be a man and then to be a player.”
Antonio is not expected to recover before the end of this season, meaning a contract extension will be needed if he is to play for the club again.
The former Nottingham Forest man is out of contract this summer, though West Ham have previously given new deals to injured players in order to support their recovery.
Talks are yet to begin over whether Antonio will get an extension.
Lopetegui experimented with captain Jarrod Bowen playing through the middle on Monday night.
But summer signing Niclas Fullkrug has finally returned from injury to help boost the attacking numbers, grabbing a goal on his return at Leicester last week.
‘STEP BY STEP’
Lopetegui is unsure, however, if the German is ready to start.
He said: “Fulla is improving step by step.
“He has been out a long time for the injury that he had and now he’s recovered himself and is day by day putting his body better.
“That is good news for us that he has come back and he’s going to be ready to help us.
“But let’s see when he’s going to be ready or not. Step by step he’s better, he feels better, he feels stronger so we can use him at any moment.”
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